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Bush Website Blocked Outside N. America
acey72 writes "The BBC News are
reporting that George W Bush's re-election website (don't bother if you aren't in the USA) is blocked to people accessing it from outside the USA. Netcraft spotted the change on Monday, and have a report on the matter. Oh well, at least John Kerry's site still works for us outlanders." At least some Canadians can access the Bush campaign site, but Europeans cannot (without going through a U.S. proxy).
though it's a little off-message.
How much of a solid foreign policy this guy has.
Let's get one thing perfectly clear, I did not vote for George W Bush, and I do not endorse what he does or says.
"
Works from Montreal, Canada... Are we considered the 51st state? Can we vote? :)
Remember the year 2000? They promised us flying cars. They delivered the PT Cruiser...
Does it have a forum, or a feedback system? It could be that they were getting a lot of, ahem, abusive messages from non-US citizens and decided this was the best way to curb them. Has anyone actually asked the admins?
Either way BFD. Political websites are almost entirely content or truth free. Why bother reading them?
Given the previous attacks by Cyber-Terroists (eg: those few odd groups protesting the RNC) I'm not surprised. If they limit the connections to US only it'll be alot easier to track them down.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
For those of us with non-US IPs, and who still have some hankering to actually visit the site, then Proxify will let you view. Be warned though, it shows NSFW text ads as well.
Then he's going to get blocked on my site in reply.
What's George W. Bush's IP? Anyone know?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
But how will Tony Blair know what to do next?
I bet that the Saudis still have access to the site. I mean, he has to get campaign contributions somehow, right?
I live in Guam, and I can't access the site either. It's a US territory, so the citizens aren't allowed to vote in presidential elections, but it's still part of the US and, as it happens, I'm from VA so I'm eligible to vote. Although by absentee ballot wouldn't be counted until after the results are tallied anyway, so what's the point.
Not that I'd vote for Bush. Or Kerry. May they both Rot in Peace.
This change of permission is very literal, almost comical example of not caring what the rest of the world thinks, and siding with the interests of business.
Blaming this on the capabilities of the provider is not an excuse.
Well, the hackers will never think of using this one https://georgewbush.com/
perl -e 'print $i=pack(c5, (41*2), sqrt(7056), (unpack(c,H)-2), oct(115), 10);'
They're actually only blocking georgewbush.com, not the IP 65.172.163.222 which the domainname points to.
So http://65.172.163.222 works fine abroad.
Silly ISP.
This is a political campaign site with political campaign propaganda. And since there are still an extremely wide variety of ways to get at its content and information from outside the US, it's obviously not some kind of "international censorship".
While I agree that there is nothing "wrong" with this (other than the collateral overseas abenstee voter damage), it does point out something about this presidents beliefs:
What the rest of the world thinks does not matter.
When setting up a site on Akamai you have to set the origin (I've done many of these!).
This still works, ripe for a DDOS... origin.georgewbush.com
Um...this is a POLITICAL CAMPAIGN SITE. The people not voting next week should have NO IMPACT here. The official policies of the United States, whoever is in office, are not disseminated by political campaign sites, but by myriad other means.
Perhaps it could have been treated as some sort of demonstration of democracy to internet-using citizens of the new Iraq and Afghanistan, an indication of the Right Manner of Doing Things?
Instead, there's just an error message with no explanation. Even a polite error message would have been an improvement...
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
Google cache and Archive.org
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
I thought Americans were pretty keen on a concept called "free speech"?
Oh - hang on... What year is it again?
We care about free speech only when it comes from us. Except for the DMCA. And the Patriot Act.
Damn, I should move.
Yes, its a political campaign site, and yes the people outside the US wont have a chance to affect the elections, but since the policies of the US have such a massive impact on the world, why shouldnt we be allowed to see the campaign pledges etc on this site? Whoever gains office next week doesnt just affect the US, it affects the world, but only the US gets to say who gains office.
This action actually speaks volumes about the man's foreign policy and his understanding of the need to win the hearts and mind of non-USians.
> and wasn't discharged until 1970
And by all appearances wasn't HONORABLY discharged until President Carter's general amensty in 1977. Of course we can't be sure since Kerry still refuses to sign the release for his military records to be made public.
Democrat delenda est
It seems like some of the Bush campaign staffers have accidentally sent emails to colleagues at name@georgewbush.ORG instead of the correct name@georgewbush.COM. Fortunately, the georgewbush.org mailserver had a "catch-all" mailbox in place, and you can read the contents of this "Dead Letter Office". There are some gems in there, like memos intended for Karl Rove, a weekly report from "Pennsylvania Evangelical Outreach", and even apparent evidence of illegal suppression of black votes (check out Caging1.xls).
Interesting ... very interesting.
NBC News
And that guy Bin Laden. It turns out that Bush isn't really that concerned about him.
LA Times story on Yahoo
That's how you get tough on terrorism, Bush-style.
Who would Jesus Torture?
Although some "Christians" might argue the following logic:
God allowed Jesus to be tortured.
God = Jesus.
Therefore, Jesus allowed Jesus to be tortured.
Golden rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Jesus says: Do unto others as I (God) would do unto (others) Jesus.
Therefore, Torture others, coz Jesus says it's okay.
When leaders in the Pentagon and Justice Department failed to take the high road and walked away from the Geneva Convention at Abu Gharib and Guantanemo Bay, they began walking the morally dubious path.
Bush's moral certainty excuses immoral activity. Some could compare it to bin Laden's moral certainty that calls for innocent slaughter. Committing crimes in the name of God doesn't make it less wrong.
The US was, and is, a nation that fostered terrorism in quite a number of countries around the world. Do you think that gives China the right to send in the helicopter gunships and take over?
Nobody liked Saddam, but more people are worried about the terrorist actions of the US than were worried about him.
Remember, double standards come home to roost. Unless you get a heap more humility and start acting to the standards of the civilised world, one day you are going to find out that type of behaviour hurts.
Don't whine about it then, you're not special and have no special rights. Learn the lesson now, before its too late.
Show me one case where any freedom of speech, press, or religion was denied in the U.S.
The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798.
Perhaps you could have phrased your question better?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The U.N. knew the location of, and was keeping tabs on, those hundreds of tons of high explosives. The knew right where they were, and exactly how much, and had pictures of them. Ditto the WMD manufacturing precursors ("dual use") that were reported several weeks back.
The U.S. invasion led directly to such chaos that all of this stuff was able to be trucked out. As you say, moving this stuff requires a massive effort. It's amazing the amount of incompetence and understaffing that had to be going on that this could happen. Even with full knowledge of the exact location and inventory of all sensitive materials before the invasion had even begun, they still couldn't keep the bad guys from hauling off truck after truck full of stuff. Hell, in the case of the WMD manufacturing, they even dismantled and took off with the buildings!
Before the invasion: a very bad guy had lots of conventional explosives, and was wishing for WMDs but probably wouldn't have been able to get them unless the sanctions were lifted (per the inspection group). He was an egomaniacal dictator, hated in the region, and jealously guarded what he had. It is not apparent that he would have sold his stuff to others. He was a bad guy, but was not a direct or apparently indirect threat to the U.S.
After the invasion: it's almost certain that a large chunk of the stuff we went to war so that Saddam wouldn't sell it to the terrorists is, well, in the hands of the terrorists.
I personally believe that this is NOT the fault of the troops, who did the best they could; it was the fault of the administration only seeing what they wanted to see, ignoring intelligence, estimates and requests they didn't like, and George W. "we're not going to have any casualties" Bush trying to do the job on the cheap because he thought he could get away with it.
Thus, as a direct result of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there are now hundreds of tons of high explosives, plus entire buildings full of specialized WMD manufacturing machinery and tools in the hands of we know not who.
Feel safer?
"Falacious" has too positive a sounding word for the content of your statements here, so I'll stick with the ever reliable "bullshit."
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A) Late term abortion isn't promoted by anyone except for the reason of the mother's health. There aren't any abortion advocates really trying to argue about things after the third trimester. This issue is a total red herring, and it's intended effect is to make the entire issue of abortion about killing babies as opposed to flushing a non-viable bundle of cells.
"The CDC estimates that 58 percent of legal abortions occur within the first eight weeks of gestation, and 88 percent are performed within the first 12 weeks. Only 1.5 percent occur after 20 weeks (CDC, 2003)."
(Feel free to argue the bias of the source, I'll find another: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/library/facts/ab
STATISTICALLY INSIGNIFICANT, but propaganda-wise it's a goldmine. Your graphic description is just an emotional ploy, totally unrelated to the actual facts of the debate. However, this seems to be a successful trend with the current administration, so I can't fault you for jumping on the rhetorical bandwagon.
Let's face it, the fundamental issue is when someone becomes a person. Since there is a fair percentage of us who don't buy the bible's explanation, and some others who don't buy the doctor's explanation ('cause you know, they're only doctors), we have to discuss it in the middle. The plan that the anti-abortion team has is to get anything they can into law that talks about the life of the fetus near the edge of the current grey area so that they have a beachhead to argue from. Same argument as killing a pregnant mother counting as a double murder. Certainly not supported by current abortion law, but they figure if they can sneak it into criminal law they can work it around eventually.
Personally, I think you should be able to abort until the end of potty training.
B) Ok, the Kerry thing has to be just trolling but I'll bite.
First, no one can deny that the situation in Iraq after the invasion is totally borked, most especially the total lack of international support.
Second, no one can deny that John Kerry's military service, whatever it is, is orders of magnitude more real than George Bush's, whatever it is. The guy actually carried a gun and shot people he could see. I'm pretty certain that gives a person important perspective on the concept of war.
The current administration is so full of chickenhawks they had to build a database to hold them. http://www.nhgazette.com/cgi-bin/NHGstore.cgi?use
C) Here's the most important thing you're missing. Iraq and abortion aren't that important issues in my mind. A president who consistently lies to the American public about important issues (jizz in the oval office being a not-important issue, for instance), and who surrounds himself with people who do the same, is not qualified for the job. People support Kerry not because he's pro-abortion but because he seems like less of a liar than the current guy.
Hey, this is my first angry slashdot post! Now where's my ribbon?
dea9
I went to the website you link to and I saw no proof for terrorism link to Irak. Lie.
Human rights violation ? Ok, the US violates the human rights too with the Guantanamo camp. W should invade the US too.
The 350 tons of explosives didn't disappeared under the UN's nose but under the US's nose. They disappeared in April 2003. Check it now.
You are too stupid to admit that there are simply no WMDs in Irak despite that even GWB himself and his administration admitted this fact. I believe you are definitely lost.
Iraq: war to save the U
Don't even get me started on the Iraq war. John Kerry should be thrown in jail for aiding the enemy.
This "insightful" comment is the reason I distrust Republicans and won't vote for Bush. Too many seem to equate reasonable dissent and constructive criticism with treason.
Every time I ask self-proclaimed democrats why they support abortion, they say they believe in a womans right to choose...
There are many here in the US without the hubris to proclaim that they know the mind of God and who do not wish to force their religous beliefs down the throats of others. Abortion is a difficult personal choice that only a woman and her own conscience can make. I find it particularly disturbing that the religious zelots on the right would outlaw late term abortions with no provision for protecting the life of the mother. By doing so, they will surely kill some women whose pregnancy has developed serious life threatening complications. It must truly feel rightous to have such moral clarity that you know that the fetus's life is always more important than the mother's.
FreeSpeech.org
Um, so what's so different about the fetus's personhood 1 day before the third trimester?
It's not viable, even with serious equipment.
Now the intersting thing is that "serious equipment" is a moving target. But the basic argument is that it can't develop outside the womb if it were, for instance, born that prematurely.
I think this is the definition of viability for fetuses, but I'm getting a little murky on the terms. Of course that's a grey area too, which is why doctor's have to consult with women to determine that a fetus is not viable before a regular abortion takes place. Please disagree with this if I'm wrong.
However, I do agree with your point that it is the snuffing out of a potential human life. It just doesn't bother me, what with the overpopulation and AIDS killing a zillion people a day.
Shit, starving people all over the world who have kids are basically sentencing a certain percentage of them to death. Where's the outrage about that? At least abortion is a well reasoned choice, where you take responsibility for your own action when it matters: before you make a mistake that leads to years of easy-to-measure human suffering.
To really clear the air, I'd even let you say life began with conception, and that abortion was actually killing a real live person. I just wouldn't call it murder, with all the punishment attached. If we're gonna have penicillin, clearly a human invented way of choosing which people to keep alive, I can't see the moral dilemma in choosing which people to prevent from being alive. The same could be said about distribution of food and medicine on a world wide scale. The Catholics are at least consistent on this one, they're pro-life for everything.
Interesting point about the not-aborted daughters, but I totally disagree. Certainly some of those girls are happy and have an excellent life and relationship with their mothers because they were born at the right time. How many too-young unwed mothers produce children that will go with them to political rallys? So I think their sentiment does make sense, choosing to end a pregnancy through abortion allows you to provide the best life for your eventual child.
"I had a dream the other night that all the babies prevented by the pill came back.
They were pissed."
- Steven Wright
dea9: Visualize your mailing lists to actually SEE trolls!
Actually is quite well know that Saddam didn't fund or train terrorist, especially not Al-Quada since they were direct enemies.
Syria is another arabic country, a good place to sell stuff if you need some cash to make an escape with.