There is nothing called lucky opportunity. Unless you are smart and prepared enough when luck or whatever comes calling, you won't make it.
[sarcasm] Oh yeah, when Paris Hilton was born, it was touch and go whether she would live her life rich and pampered. Smart and prepared, that's our Paris to a fare-the-well. Likewise Prince Charles and the whole British Royal Family. I am just so impressed with how they got to where they are today! [/sarcasm]
You must not know very many Red Sox fans, because the answer is obvious, and it is not what you think.
Evidence, please? For the last 12 years I've lived within 10 miles of Fenway Park. Most of the people I associate with are Red Sox fans. The vast majority also support Kerry. For your information, Massachusetts, ground zero of Red Sox Nation, supports Kerry over Bush by 64% to 27% according to electoral-vote.com. VT, CT and RI are also Kerry states, while ME and NH are swings. It's clear that New England, Red Sox Nation, is Kerry country. Gee, that one was like shooting fish in a barrel!
They will swear beyond *reasonable* doubt, as many of them have done.
Not in a court of law! No case has been tried, despite the fact that the Bush administration is hotter to find the CBS "forger" than it is to find the Nigerian Yellowcake forger. Swearing in a blog is a little different, you'll have to admit. For now, until we get more info on the CBS docs, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Whoops, no. Reasonable doubt, not shadow of a doubt.
Got me.
And faxes can cause the same effect.
Moving glyphs on the same line up and down? Bull. Show me or retract.
I was using hyperbole. The point was that Kerry has not even run significantly on his own Senate record, so of course the criticisms of Kerry will be primarily about what he has *said*.
Well, I criticised you on what you had said. You said, with emphasis, "he hasn't done anything." Admit it, you were dead wrong.
Why don't you check out that link comparing Kerry's legislative accomplishments to Cheneys'. Yeah, I know it's a waste of time giving you links, but what the heck.
Read the other reply I just wrote --> but the fact is that Kerry doesn't have much of a record in the Senate. If he did, he would run on his record in the Senate,
Says you, but you're not running the Kerry campaign. You've found them guilty of making different choices than you would. Big deal. It fails to address my point, which is that you seem to be getting all your info from anti-Kerry sources, and that makes you seem ignorant. Again, I'm not saying you are ignorant; just that your lack of knowledge of the Kerry point of view lead you astray.
You have the same problem understanding conjunctions as the other respondent.
Ooh, I love this one. It appears that what the other respondant and I did here was to take your words out of context and use them to make you appear to be some kind of idiot. But hey, the whole Bush Cheney campaign is based on exactly that approach! They did it in 2000, they're doing it now. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Karl Rove -- I learned everything I know watching him! Oh boy, that was fun! (OK, truth be told, I parsed your sentence without ever seeing the interpretation you intended. I see what you mean now, but it was an ambiguous sentence with a primrose path.)
That is absolutely false, and you should be embarrassed. From May 2003 debate:...
You clearly didn't follow the link I provided. The debate comments you cited are consistent with Kerry's senate floor stand:
"Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm (Hussein) by force, if we ever exhaust... other options," Kerry said 23 months ago on the Senate floor before voting to authorize the force, imploring Bush to take the matter to the United Nations.
But As I said before, I don't have any problem with people changing their minds occasionally. As I said before, I often take it as a sign of common sense. You and the GOP on the other hand take it as a major flaw. Given your stand changing one's mind, how do you explain this
Do you want to be my friend? Send 1 Bush bashing comment to me,
Would you accept a Cheney bashing comment? How about Cheney bashing Cheney? I found the following on andrewsullivan.
"And the question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is not very damned many. So I think we got it right, both when we decided to expel him from Kuwait, but also when the president made the decision that we'd achieved our objectives and we were not going to go get bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq... All of a sudden you've got a battle you're fighting in a major built-up city, a lot of civilians are around, significant limitations on our ability to use our most effective technologies and techniques. Once we had rounded him up and gotten rid of his government, then the question is what do you put in its place? You know, you then have accepted the responsibility for governing Iraq." - vice president Dick Cheney, 1992
You can find the full context of the quote here and some newspaper spin here. Now personally, I don't have a problem with a person changing his mind. To me it's often a sign of common sense. But over in GOP-land it seems to be some kind of mortal sin! Or maybe only when a democrat does it...
Because in that context, not many are dying. Think of it this way. Some weird surgery, where only 1 out of 100,000 die due to complications. But at this one hospital, the 2 people have already died... the rate is now *incredibly* high (since they haven't exactly performed 100,000 of them). Is that bad? Yes, I don't like to think that anyone dies unnecessarily. Is it something the nation should be concerned about? Hardly. 2 deaths is a low number, let it be handled more locally. When the 100th patient has died, and nothing has been done yet, maybe then its something to be outraged about.
You do raise an interesting point about the time history of the situation here. In the case of driving deaths, we've been working on that since at least the 1950s. We've also informed people of the risks for decades and given them choices (seatbelts, airbags) to reduce the risk. This history makes the risk and the resulting death rate socially acceptable.
Getting back to your example, did the surgeon properly inform the patient of the risks? Is the surgery elective of life-saving? Were there other options for the patient, and was she properly informed about them? The corresponding situation with Bush is did he give us the best estimates of the risks and costs of invading Iraq? Did he look at the opportunity costs* as well as the potential benefits?
*(opportunity costs: options we give up upon committing to a course of action. For example, if half our combat troops are committed to Iraq and the other half are recovering from their tour in Iraq, we can't make a credible threat to Iran or North Korea.)
Also, you can deal with a surgeon locally but, how do we handle troop deployments locally? Can all the "blue" states recall their troops from Iraq? Yay!!! (That's a joke, son.) My point is that the analogy doesn't fit the situation in all particulars.
pudge: First, jeez, lighten up...
OK, I'll try. It's hard, given the number of falsehoods being circulated these days, and the amount of misdirection, but I'll try.
pudge: Second... two star hitters...
I plead nolo contendere on that one! On the other hand, Bush doesn't know the name of his star Supreme Court Justice Anthony/Antonio Scalia! And I could argue that Antonin Scalia counts as at least 1.8 Supreme Court justices because Clarence Thomas votes with him over 80% of the time! Which would you rather have, a President who didn't know his hometown baseball stars, or a President who didn't know who was on the Supreme Court? (Yeah, I know, Bush just misspoke. Lighten up, will ya!)
pudge: Third, you can't be serious about the forgeries....
I seriously think there's not enough information to draw a firm conclusion, and that's what I wrote. Look, all CBS ever had, all anybody's ever seen, are faxes from Burkett. Fax resolution is 150 DPI, which, for purposes of document forensics, is piss poor. As I type I'm looking at a blowup of a CBS doc that says "Report to the 111th" (with superscript). The 'o' in "Report" is exactly 9 pixels tall. The 'o' in 'to' is 10 pixels tall. the '1's in "111" are 7 pixels wide.
My point is that no reputable expert is going to swear beyond the shadow of a doubt based solely on 150 DPI faxes. Sure, the preponderance of the evidence says they're forgeries, but the standard in a criminal trial is beyond the shadow of a doubt. You want a little doubt? It looks to me like some of the instances of the same glyph are higher or lower than others. Typewriters; especially worn ones, strike at varying heights. MSWord doesn't. I'm not claiming that proves the docs are valid; I just think there's still signifcant uncertainty about them. From what I know now, on a 50/50 bet I'd bet against them. But on a 20:1 bet, I'd put up $10 to say they're valid against your $200 claiming they're false. Would you take that bet? How about 100:1? See what I mean? There's still uncertainty about them.
pudge: Fourth... he hasn't done anything..
Flat out false. here's a small summary from Kerry's Senate career awards.
Here's another, comparing Kerry's legislative accomplishments with Cheney's.
Read here and here about the BCCI affair.
A word of advice here. You've clearly been getting most of your information from anti- Kerry sources. It's a free country, you're welcome to do that, but my advice is: don't take all that stuff as the full and complete story on Kerry. Taking that stuff as gospel and ignoring the counter arguments makes you look, well, ignorant.
I'm not saying you are ignorant; just that some of the things you say leave an unfortunate impression. Case in point:
pudge: Further, I don't know how you can consider what Bush has done in Iraq a substantive issue,...
Most observers consider Iraq to be the most substantive issue of the campaign.
pudge:... Kerry has completely reversed his position on Iraq...
False. Read this analysis from the SF Chronicle's Marc Sandalow. Yeah, I know, you think you can safely igore it because the paper's probably liberal. But I'm telling you, that's the kind of ignoring that can lead to ignorance! By the way, Kerry didn't say 'the invasion was "the right decision,"' he
Thanks for the vote of support; I totally agree.
Sometimes you can attract moderator attention by putting "mod parent up" in the subject; unfortunately, that's already the name of this thread!
I think you'd better start getting your information from more than just freepers. You've got some serious errors here. Also, you clearly know how to use href tags; why not attempt to substantiate some of your claims?
Kerry's story about how Nixon sent him to Cambodia during Christmas, and how this was "seared, seared" in his memory. Only now we find out that he was never in Cambodia, and Nixon wasn't even president then anyways.
Wrong on several counts; he never said Nixon sent him -- here's an anti-kerry blog with a compendium of Kerry's Cambodia quotes here's another -- show me a "Nixon sent" quote or you'll have to retract. Sure, Kerry mentions Nixon, but he never says what you claim.
Next, on June 16, 1971 O'Neill told Nixon that "I was in Cambodia, sir." This was recorded by Nixon's secret taping system. That story even made it to freepers, so you have no excuse for missing it!
What we have is, in the 1970's both Kerry and O'Neill agreeing they were in Cambodia, and in 2004 O'Neill changing his story. To you this is proof Kerry lied? A number of vets have come out against O'Neill's group's claims. Read about it here. According to this article, Kerry's boat was very near the border; how can you prove he wasn't on the Cambodian side?
It was also seared
in his memory about when he was in Vietnam when he heard MLK Jr. was shot. Only MLK Jr. was shot months before Kerry went to Vietnam.
Correct, Kerry is in error here, although Kerry never uses the word "seared" regarding that memory. Kerry was on the USS Gridley, mostly in the Gulf of Tonkin. Exactly how far is that from Vietnamese territorial waters?
Kerry has admitted that his first Purple Heart
"may have" been self-inflicted (by accident). This is mainly because Kerry's journal from the time stated that they hadn't been attacked yet.
False. Kerry admitted no such thing. The "self inflicted" claim comes from this line of logic: Kerry was first wounded Dec 2, then wrote in his journal Dec 11 "A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky,". Kerry-haters, reading this journal entry, have claimed the wound must have been self-inflicted, but Kerry said no such thing.
Kerry said he got an honorable discharge before schmoozing with the North Vietnamese, but in fact he was still an officer.
False. Kerry never said he was discharged when he met with the North Vietnamese in Paris. The error is in an AP timeline; not in Kerry materials. You can read about it here. Show me where Kerry claims he was discharged before Paris, or retract.
He now claims that he requested and signed up for
the most dangerous job in the Vietnam War, but in actuality he tried
to sign up for the safest. (After failing to get a deferment.) How
do we know this? Not only because of records (swift boats were
changed from easy coastal patrols to dangerous river missions
after Kerry signed up). But we also have Kerry's own admission
of this fact a few years ago.
False. Show me where Kerry claims he "requested" the "most dangerous job." Kerry explains he volunteered for the Swift Boats so he could be near the action but not in it. Here's a direct quote: "They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing." It is a measure of K
Sure, I can lighten up. My kids are not yet at risk of dying on foreign soil due to Whitehouse blunders. But what do you say to the families of those who died? Are you gonna tell them that it's OK to ignore Iraq and joke about Eddie Yost? If the news were filled with substantive discussions about the candidates' proposals on Iraq, health care, and deficits, I'd be more tolerant of these jokes. But the news is mostly about jokes, and I find it a crying shame.
Questionable origins of the "Eddie Yost" story
on
Football Fans For Truth
·
· Score: 4, Informative
I've been in an email discussion about the "Eddie Yost" story -- the claim that several years ago, Kerry claimed his favorite Red Sox player was Eddie Yost, who coached for the Sox but never played there. Here's what I've dug up:
First Mention is in this 7/15/04 Peter Gammons piece. Most of it is about Baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:
Thing called love
We have been led to cynically believe that many politicians are disingenuous and generally phony, but few will ever beat Massachusetts Senator John Kerry. This man, who changed his middle initial to be JFK and at an anti-Vietnam rally threw someone else's medals into the water, made a self-promotion appearance with Boston talk-show maven Eddie Andelman and claimed he was a big Red Sox fan from his days growing up in Groton, Mass. And at the promotion he said Eddie Yost was his favorite player.
This remarkable paragraph contains three assertions about Kerry: "middle initial", "medals", and "Yost." The first two are erroneous, and the third is not testable. "Middle initial" is false -- Kerry's middle name is his mother's maiden name, Forbes, a famous old Boston name. Gammons has an error in his "medals" story, Kerry threw ribbons over a fence; not medals in the water. You can read Thomas Oliphant's eyewitness account here or here.
To summarize, Gammons makes three assertions about Kerry, and the first to are erroneous. What about the third? I don't know any way to prove a negative, but the very first mention of the "Yost" story that I can find, in Boston or anywhere else, is that 7/15 Gammons column. It's all over the blogsphere now, but Gammons has first mention. Given Gammons' other errors, I don't find it very credible.
Now just to complicate matters, Gammons brings up the "Yost" story again five days later in another
column. Again, it's mostly about baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:
So who puts the bug in candidates' ears about seeming what they are not? John Kerry last week professed to be a big fan of "Manny Ortez," then re-emphasized the phoofery by correcting it to "David Ortez." No, that was Dave (Baby) Cortez and "The Happy Organ." A few years back Kerry went on a Boston station with Eddie Andelman and said "my favorite Red Sox player of all time is The Walking Man, Eddie Yost," who never played for the Red Sox. Kerry is going to sweep New England. He's going to get 70 percent of the vote in Massachusetts. He doesn't have to be a Red Sox fan, all he has to do is not be John Ashcroft.
This time, the "Yost" story is folded in with less controversial claims. If you're an anti-Kerry blogger, this version looks less foolish, but given the first mention amongst two canards, I don't find it credible on Gammons' say-so alone. I say bring me independent confirmation or dump it.
In a year when war in Iraq, the threat of terrorism and looming problems with the federal budget and the nation's health care system cry out for serious debate, the news organizations on which people should be able to depend have been diverted into chasing sham events: a scurrilous and largely inaccurate attack on the Vietnam service of John Kerry and a forged document charging President Bush with disobeying an order for an Air National Guard physical.
Almost. Ladies and gentleman, we're watching a brilliant campaign at
Everyone knows that Iraq is a mess. It's well illustrated every night on the evening news. The issue is already "priced in" to the equation - already knowing that Bush supporters are bush supporters and undecideds remain undecided.
You may be right; on the other hand, I didn't explain myself very well. Bush & Co. have managed, quite well, to conflate the indigenous resistance in Iraq with al Qaeda, to conflate the war on terror with the war on Iraq, and to mislead large segments of the public about any possible "contacts" or "relationships" between Saddam and al Qaeda. It's your basic FUD strategy and it's been working extremely well. I watched about six hours of the RNC over four nights, and it was a masterpiece of conflation.
Kerry's job is simple: to point out where Bush has mislead, and to tell the truth about how the war in Iraq isn't a war against al Qaeda or their brand of terrorism; rather it's a diversion of resources away from the war we should be fighting.
Richard Clark wrote his book largely to make that point, but it needs to be re-stated clearly and forcefully.
If voters realize the war in Iraq hasn't made Americans safer they may turn on Bush.
ABC News'
TheNote has a lovely nugget about what the Bush campaign got changed from the original debate proposal:
Although Anne Kornblut's Boston Globe framing of the conclusion of the
debate about debates is typical
LINK
("Despite tussles over the timing and format, the 90-minute debates will take place more or less as initially proposed; only the subjects of the first and third debates have changed."), in fact, James Baker, by accepting all four debates (3 presidential and 1 veep), seems to have gotten some other key, little-Noticed changes in return.
What the Bush campaign got changed:
1. The first widely watched and covered debate will be on foreign policy and national security, rather than domestic policy.
2. No direct engagement between the candidates is allowed -- the Commission's proposed plan had actually encouraged such dynamic-changing contact.
3. As "Miss (Nicolle) Devenish" told the Washington Times : "the agreement reached yesterday also will make 'very clear whenever the candidates attempt to filibuster or grandstand. There is a light that will flash for TV audiences when that happens -- a historic first,' she said. 'Moderators have to sign on and say they agree with the rules, or we'll find new moderators.'"
4. The voters at the town-hall debate won't be undecideds, but, rather "soft" supporters of each side -- and we have yet to figure out what that means or why Team Bush prefered that -- but Baker got it.
5. The candidates can't address each other with "proposed pledges" (although rhetorical questions are allowed!!).
6. The town-hallers can't ask follow ups or participate after they ask their one question -- avoiding any prospect of a "Richmond" moment.
The Commission itself and the moderators have not been heard from, but our guts tell us two things:
A. This deal will stick.
B. If George Walker Bush already owed James Addison Baker big time after Florida, he owes him bigger time now.
So how do these changes benefit Team Bush? Your comments are welcome. I think (1) will benefit Kerry, because the truth is Iraq is a mess, and Kerry can highlight that sixty ways from sunday. I think (2) is toothless; the candidates can always take time out of a current answer to lambaste the opponent's previous comment. I can see the benefit of (6) in that the candidate doesn't have to answer the question and won't get called on it.
I mostly agree. I don't care about Bush's actions in his youth; he's given up booze, and in my mind that's huge.
BUT. If Bush has lied in the present about his past; if he used his powers as governor of Texas to cover up embarrassing details of his TXANG service and "scrub" his record, Then I do care about it.
The misleading statements about TXANG aren't big lies Bush has told, but they're lies. And the coverup is a bigger deal. Both the coverup and the lies speak about Bush's character. Since Bush has made his character such an issue in the campaign, the lies and coverup matter.
No, Sullivan is not single-issue at all. I'm an independent who frequently votes democratic, but I've been reading Andrew Sullivan for over a year. Sullivan supported Bush in 2000 knowing Bush was anti-gay at the time. Sullivan's biggest issue is the war in Iraq. He supports the war, and believes Bush mis-handled it. My impression is that Abu Ghraib was the event that solidified it for him. Until then Sullivan was saying he leaned against Bush, but could be won over by success in Iraq. After Abu Ghraib, or after the complete lack of anyone being held accountable for Abu Ghraib, Sullivan hardened against Bush.
It's a nice glib piece of spin to claim Sullivan is a single-issue gay-rights advocate, but it's simply false. Simply another piece of misleading spin. As Paul Simon wrote "Some people say a lie's a lie's a lie, but l say why, Why deny the obvious child? why deny the obvious child?"
One other page to check out is campaigndesk. . It isn't exactly a blog, but it's got excellent media criticism (and even occasional praise). It's put out by the Columbia School of Journalism.
Finally, and this one's in no way a blog,
ABC News' TheNote summarizes and links a lot of political reporting every day. TheNote has much more praise than criticism, but during the political season it's part of my essential daily reading.
>> given that Kerry recently stated he STILL
>> would have voted for the war,
Actually, what Kerry said is that he still would have voted to give the president the authority to go to war. That's rather different. Especially when you put it in context with what that authority means. As Kerry has pointed out, the president can go to war without Congress's vote. As Kerry has pointed out, Clinton went to Bosnia without Congressional authority. As Kerry has explained, the purpose of the authority is to try and give the Senate some influence over the war decision.
I don't care what Bush or Kerry did 30+ years ago. However, if either of them have recently lied in a signifcant about their past, then that tells me something about their current character, and I care about that.
The swift boat stuff was all concerned actions 30+ years ago. Did Kerry tell recent lies about those actions? I don't think so -- all the fact checking I've seen supports Kerry and says the swift boat gang are liars.
Did Bush lie recently about his National Guard service? It appears he did. It appears Bush never completed his NG duty, and continues to claim he did. It also appears Bush is deceiving us somehow about what he did in Alabama. It also appears Bush engaged in a coverup, using his powers as governor of Texas to "cleanse" his record.
Now these aren't big lies Bush has told, but they're lies. And the coverup is a bigger deal. Both the coverup and the lies speak about Bush's character. Since Bush has made his character such an issue in the campaign, the lies and coverup matter.
Nice little quote from a radio interview. Jerry Brown (ex gov of California) is asking the question.
JB: John, I'm going to read you something that you've said, and I'm going to ask you how to attain what you're suggesting. I quote, "We have to radically decentralize government corporate schooling, return the power of designing and assessing programs to the local level, and ensure that every form of training for the young aims at producing independent, self-reliant minds, good characters, and individuals who get fighting mad when called a 'human resource' and told their main function is to be part of the work force. Ok, great, I accept that - so how do we get there? Who do we attack and what do we build?
Unfortunately, Gatto doesn't give a recipe for how to get there, but it helps just to have the notion in mind...
You're thinking DRAM, with one transister per bit, but slow (plus it needs refreshing every 60msec or so). Static RAM is mucho faster, with 4 to 8 transistors per bit.
Also, your math is in error. 500M transistors for 70 Mbits works out to 7 transistors per bit. I'm guessing the visible portion of the chip will be 64Mbits and 6 transistors/bit, with most the rest of the transistors allocated as spares. When you make a chip that big, you can boost yield by making spare blocks of memory that during manufacturing can be substituted for bad areas on the chip.
Yes indeed, fact checking the opinion sections of media is certainly in vogue these days. Well, checking the facts of Michael Moore, anyway.
I haven't seen "Fahrenheit 9/11" yet. But I have no doubt that Michael
Moore combines selective presentation of the truth with innuendo and
implication to deceive viewers and drag Bush through the muck.
Reprehensible, sure.
But while we're on the subject, who does Moore remind you of? Let's
make a little list. On the left wing, you might say Al Franken,
though I don't believe he's nearly as much of a muck-raker as Moore;
Franken's books mostly expose the dirty tricks of the muck-rakers on
the right wing. Now we'll add those muck-rakers to our list: Ann
Coulter, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly,
and Michael Savage (I'll exclude Matt Drudge because he only claims to
be 80% truthful).
We all know that we're going to hear a load of high dudgeon from the
punditry about Michael Moore, but how many of these pundits have ever
taken a real honest stand against the year-in year-out deceptions of
Coulter, Hannity, Ingraham, et al.? (from now on I'll abbreviate them
as CHILOS.)
According to http://www.kmbz.com/schedule.asp, Limbaugh and Savage
broadcast 15 hours per week; O'Reilly and Ingraham 10. That's on
radio. On TV O'Reilly and Hannity have five hours each per week;
Coulter probably guests an hour a month. Moore's average is closer to
a few hours per year. And you have to pay nine bucks to see Moore's
film. Why all the fuss amongst pundits? Is Moore really that much
more dangerous than CHILOS?
I think the real danger Moore presents is that any pundit with any
pretensions of honesty will no longer be able to remain silent about
CHILOS. It's starting to happen already: P. J. O'Rourke's recent
Atlantic article "I Agree with Me" looks like a pre-emptive house
cleaning so he can attack Moore with a clearer conscience. All of a
sudden, O'Rourke discovers what's been going on in talk radio for the
last decade, and he doesn't like it. Doesn't have the guts to call it
lies, but something about it rubs P. J. the wrong way. Well, it's a
start.
But being honest about CHILOS a few years too late is tantamount to
admitting that you've been dishonest about them and their corrosive
effect on the national discourse up until now. Are CHILOS liars? Is
Moore a liar? Well, technically, Moore decieves with the truth, and
we have a long and hallowed history of allowing that kind of
deception. And Moore has a serious fact checking team to back up
every word in his film. How about CHILOS? In their relatively
unexamined state, and with all the hours of airtime they must fill,
they get away with many more lies; especially Limbaugh.
Sidebar: Is there really a distinction between "intentionally
deceiving with the truth" and "lying"? Gadzooks! If we don't
draw that distinction, we'll throw out 90% of the art of modern
American politics. Political campaigns consist mostly of attempts
to decieve, using selective truth. What in the world would we do
with ourselves if "intentionally deceiving with the truth" were
held in the same contempt as "lying"? Do we dare to contemplate it?
And then there are the troubling questions: why are these corroders of
our public discourse, these professional slimers and character
assassinators, these right-wing equivalents of Michael Moore, always
so on-message with the RNC? Of course it's because the RNC sends them
the latest oppo research and talking points. Horrors; it's almost as
if the RNC doesn't give a damn about the truth except as a weapon of
mass deception. Pundit, do you dare to go there? Of course, you can
argue that the DNC distributes oppo research too, but in the last 3
election cycles a whole lot more RNC oppo found its way into the news
shows and newspapers. So Let's make Michael Moore a litmus test. I
think you'll find the left wing a whole lot more willing to be honest
about Moore and his methods than the right wing has been about CHILOS
according to the roadmap, pdf and eps export will arrive at milestone 9 (inkscape 0.43). The project has currently completed milestone 4 (inkscape 0.39, though.38 is what sourceforge has for download).
It'll start to get real interesting for me when I can make.eps and.pdf objects
I believe the early crays implemented 64 bit floating point. Not IEEE floating point; no NaN or Inf codes, but still full precision.
I believe the speed was due to many factors. Here are a few.
(0) 64 bit word and and a ton of registers including eight 64 word vector registers.
(1) very fast memory - at a time when many folks were using magnetic cores, Cray was using multi-transistor static RAM (like in the on-board caches of today's CPUs).
(2) load - store instruction set. Many of the ideas that became popular in 1990s era RISC computers were present in the Cray 1 instruction set. One of the key ones is to separate instructions that read and write main memory from those that operate on data. That way, a program can start fetching data several cycles before the data is needed, and hide the fetch delay.
(3) 16 banks of memory - each bank can handle a fetch independently; another way of overcoming memory latency.
(4) Freon cooling! - does this make Seymour the first overclocker?!
I checked out the topology of the Cray X1; they call it an "enhanced 3D torus." A 3D torus would be if you made an NxNxN cube of nodes, connected all ajacent nodes (top, bottom, left, right, front, back), and then connected all the processors on one face thru to the opposite face. I can't tell what an "enhanced" torus is. (Each X1 node, by the way, has four 12.8 gflop MSPs, and each MSP has eight 32-stage, 64 bit floating point pipelines.)
So each node is directly connected to six ajacent nodes. Contrast this with the Thinking Machines Connection Machine CM2 topology, which had 2^N nodes connected in an N dimensional hypercube. So each node in a 16384 node CM2 was directly connected to 16 other nodes. There's a theorem that you can always embed a lower dimensional torus in an N dimensional hypercube, so the CM2 had all the benefits of a torus and more. This topology was criticized because you never needed as much connectivity as you got in the higher node-count machines, to CM2 was in effect selling you too much wiring.
Thinking Machines changed the topology to fat trees in the CM5. One of the cool things about the fat tree is it allows you to buy as much connectivity as you need. I'm really surprised that it seems to have died when Thinking Machines collapsed.
On the other hand, any kind of 3D mesh is probably pretty good for simulating physics in 3D. You can have each node model a block of atmosphere for a weather simulation, or a little wedge of hydrogen for an H-bomb simulation. But it might be useful to have one more dimension of connection for distributing global results to the nodes.
Slashdot Mirror
Cynical, and oh so funny!
[sarcasm] Oh yeah, when Paris Hilton was born, it was touch and go whether she would live her life rich and pampered. Smart and prepared, that's our Paris to a fare-the-well. Likewise Prince Charles and the whole British Royal Family. I am just so impressed with how they got to where they are today! [/sarcasm]
Evidence, please? For the last 12 years I've lived within 10 miles of Fenway Park. Most of the people I associate with are Red Sox fans. The vast majority also support Kerry. For your information, Massachusetts, ground zero of Red Sox Nation, supports Kerry over Bush by 64% to 27% according to electoral-vote.com. VT, CT and RI are also Kerry states, while ME and NH are swings. It's clear that New England, Red Sox Nation, is Kerry country. Gee, that one was like shooting fish in a barrel!
They will swear beyond *reasonable* doubt, as many of them have done.
Not in a court of law! No case has been tried, despite the fact that the Bush administration is hotter to find the CBS "forger" than it is to find the Nigerian Yellowcake forger. Swearing in a blog is a little different, you'll have to admit. For now, until we get more info on the CBS docs, we'll have to agree to disagree.
Whoops, no. Reasonable doubt, not shadow of a doubt.
Got me.
And faxes can cause the same effect.
Moving glyphs on the same line up and down? Bull. Show me or retract.
I was using hyperbole. The point was that Kerry has not even run significantly on his own Senate record, so of course the criticisms of Kerry will be primarily about what he has *said*.
Well, I criticised you on what you had said. You said, with emphasis, "he hasn't done anything." Admit it, you were dead wrong. Why don't you check out that link comparing Kerry's legislative accomplishments to Cheneys'. Yeah, I know it's a waste of time giving you links, but what the heck.
Read the other reply I just wrote --> but the fact is that Kerry doesn't have much of a record in the Senate. If he did, he would run on his record in the Senate,
Says you, but you're not running the Kerry campaign. You've found them guilty of making different choices than you would. Big deal. It fails to address my point, which is that you seem to be getting all your info from anti-Kerry sources, and that makes you seem ignorant. Again, I'm not saying you are ignorant; just that your lack of knowledge of the Kerry point of view lead you astray.
You have the same problem understanding conjunctions as the other respondent.
Ooh, I love this one. It appears that what the other respondant and I did here was to take your words out of context and use them to make you appear to be some kind of idiot. But hey, the whole Bush Cheney campaign is based on exactly that approach! They did it in 2000, they're doing it now. If you have a problem with that, take it up with Karl Rove -- I learned everything I know watching him! Oh boy, that was fun! (OK, truth be told, I parsed your sentence without ever seeing the interpretation you intended. I see what you mean now, but it was an ambiguous sentence with a primrose path.)
That is absolutely false, and you should be embarrassed. From May 2003 debate: ...
You clearly didn't follow the link I provided. The debate comments you cited are consistent with Kerry's senate floor stand:
But As I said before, I don't have any problem with people changing their minds occasionally. As I said before, I often take it as a sign of common sense. You and the GOP on the other hand take it as a major flaw. Given your stand changing one's mind, how do you explain this
Would you accept a Cheney bashing comment? How about Cheney bashing Cheney? I found the following on andrewsullivan.
You can find the full context of the quote here and some newspaper spin here. Now personally, I don't have a problem with a person changing his mind. To me it's often a sign of common sense. But over in GOP-land it seems to be some kind of mortal sin! Or maybe only when a democrat does it...
Getting back to your example, did the surgeon properly inform the patient of the risks? Is the surgery elective of life-saving? Were there other options for the patient, and was she properly informed about them? The corresponding situation with Bush is did he give us the best estimates of the risks and costs of invading Iraq? Did he look at the opportunity costs* as well as the potential benefits?
*(opportunity costs: options we give up upon committing to a course of action. For example, if half our combat troops are committed to Iraq and the other half are recovering from their tour in Iraq, we can't make a credible threat to Iran or North Korea.)
Also, you can deal with a surgeon locally but, how do we handle troop deployments locally? Can all the "blue" states recall their troops from Iraq? Yay!!! (That's a joke, son.) My point is that the analogy doesn't fit the situation in all particulars.
OK, I'll try. It's hard, given the number of falsehoods being circulated these days, and the amount of misdirection, but I'll try.
pudge: Second ... two star hitters ...
I plead nolo contendere on that one! On the other hand, Bush doesn't know the name of his star Supreme Court Justice Anthony/Antonio Scalia! And I could argue that Antonin Scalia counts as at least 1.8 Supreme Court justices because Clarence Thomas votes with him over 80% of the time! Which would you rather have, a President who didn't know his hometown baseball stars, or a President who didn't know who was on the Supreme Court? (Yeah, I know, Bush just misspoke. Lighten up, will ya!)
pudge: Third, you can't be serious about the forgeries. ...
I seriously think there's not enough information to draw a firm conclusion, and that's what I wrote. Look, all CBS ever had, all anybody's ever seen, are faxes from Burkett. Fax resolution is 150 DPI, which, for purposes of document forensics, is piss poor. As I type I'm looking at a blowup of a CBS doc that says "Report to the 111th" (with superscript). The 'o' in "Report" is exactly 9 pixels tall. The 'o' in 'to' is 10 pixels tall. the '1's in "111" are 7 pixels wide. My point is that no reputable expert is going to swear beyond the shadow of a doubt based solely on 150 DPI faxes. Sure, the preponderance of the evidence says they're forgeries, but the standard in a criminal trial is beyond the shadow of a doubt. You want a little doubt? It looks to me like some of the instances of the same glyph are higher or lower than others. Typewriters; especially worn ones, strike at varying heights. MSWord doesn't. I'm not claiming that proves the docs are valid; I just think there's still signifcant uncertainty about them. From what I know now, on a 50/50 bet I'd bet against them. But on a 20:1 bet, I'd put up $10 to say they're valid against your $200 claiming they're false. Would you take that bet? How about 100:1? See what I mean? There's still uncertainty about them.
pudge: Fourth ... he hasn't done anything..
Flat out false. here's a small summary from Kerry's Senate career awards. Here's another, comparing Kerry's legislative accomplishments with Cheney's. Read here and here about the BCCI affair.
A word of advice here. You've clearly been getting most of your information from anti- Kerry sources. It's a free country, you're welcome to do that, but my advice is: don't take all that stuff as the full and complete story on Kerry. Taking that stuff as gospel and ignoring the counter arguments makes you look, well, ignorant. I'm not saying you are ignorant; just that some of the things you say leave an unfortunate impression. Case in point:
pudge: Further, I don't know how you can consider what Bush has done in Iraq a substantive issue, ...
Most observers consider Iraq to be the most substantive issue of the campaign.
pudge: ... Kerry has completely reversed his position on Iraq ...
False. Read this analysis from the SF Chronicle's Marc Sandalow. Yeah, I know, you think you can safely igore it because the paper's probably liberal. But I'm telling you, that's the kind of ignoring that can lead to ignorance! By the way, Kerry didn't say 'the invasion was "the right decision,"' he
Thanks for the vote of support; I totally agree. Sometimes you can attract moderator attention by putting "mod parent up" in the subject; unfortunately, that's already the name of this thread!
Wrong on several counts; he never said Nixon sent him -- here's an anti-kerry blog with a compendium of Kerry's Cambodia quotes here's another -- show me a "Nixon sent" quote or you'll have to retract. Sure, Kerry mentions Nixon, but he never says what you claim. Next, on June 16, 1971 O'Neill told Nixon that "I was in Cambodia, sir." This was recorded by Nixon's secret taping system. That story even made it to freepers, so you have no excuse for missing it!
What we have is, in the 1970's both Kerry and O'Neill agreeing they were in Cambodia, and in 2004 O'Neill changing his story. To you this is proof Kerry lied? A number of vets have come out against O'Neill's group's claims. Read about it here. According to this article, Kerry's boat was very near the border; how can you prove he wasn't on the Cambodian side?
Correct, Kerry is in error here, although Kerry never uses the word "seared" regarding that memory. Kerry was on the USS Gridley, mostly in the Gulf of Tonkin. Exactly how far is that from Vietnamese territorial waters?
False. Kerry admitted no such thing. The "self inflicted" claim comes from this line of logic: Kerry was first wounded Dec 2, then wrote in his journal Dec 11 "A cocky feeling of invincibility accompanied us up the Long Tau shipping channel because we hadn't been shot at yet, and Americans at war who haven't been shot at are allowed to be cocky,". Kerry-haters, reading this journal entry, have claimed the wound must have been self-inflicted, but Kerry said no such thing.
False. Kerry never said he was discharged when he met with the North Vietnamese in Paris. The error is in an AP timeline; not in Kerry materials. You can read about it here. Show me where Kerry claims he was discharged before Paris, or retract.
False. Show me where Kerry claims he "requested" the "most dangerous job." Kerry explains he volunteered for the Swift Boats so he could be near the action but not in it. Here's a direct quote: "They were engaged in coastal patrolling and that's what I thought I was going to be doing." It is a measure of K
Sure, I can lighten up. My kids are not yet at risk of dying on foreign soil due to Whitehouse blunders. But what do you say to the families of those who died? Are you gonna tell them that it's OK to ignore Iraq and joke about Eddie Yost? If the news were filled with substantive discussions about the candidates' proposals on Iraq, health care, and deficits, I'd be more tolerant of these jokes. But the news is mostly about jokes, and I find it a crying shame.
First Mention is in this 7/15/04 Peter Gammons piece. Most of it is about Baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:
This remarkable paragraph contains three assertions about Kerry: "middle initial", "medals", and "Yost." The first two are erroneous, and the third is not testable. "Middle initial" is false -- Kerry's middle name is his mother's maiden name, Forbes, a famous old Boston name. Gammons has an error in his "medals" story, Kerry threw ribbons over a fence; not medals in the water. You can read Thomas Oliphant's eyewitness account here or here. To summarize, Gammons makes three assertions about Kerry, and the first to are erroneous. What about the third? I don't know any way to prove a negative, but the very first mention of the "Yost" story that I can find, in Boston or anywhere else, is that 7/15 Gammons column. It's all over the blogsphere now, but Gammons has first mention. Given Gammons' other errors, I don't find it very credible.
Now just to complicate matters, Gammons brings up the "Yost" story again five days later in another column. Again, it's mostly about baseball, but here's the relevant paragraph:
This time, the "Yost" story is folded in with less controversial claims. If you're an anti-Kerry blogger, this version looks less foolish, but given the first mention amongst two canards, I don't find it credible on Gammons' say-so alone. I say bring me independent confirmation or dump it.
And now a bit on the meta-story. Let me shamelessy copy the Daily Howler and quote David Broder:
Almost. Ladies and gentleman, we're watching a brilliant campaign at
Kerry's job is simple: to point out where Bush has mislead, and to tell the truth about how the war in Iraq isn't a war against al Qaeda or their brand of terrorism; rather it's a diversion of resources away from the war we should be fighting. Richard Clark wrote his book largely to make that point, but it needs to be re-stated clearly and forcefully.
If voters realize the war in Iraq hasn't made Americans safer they may turn on Bush.
BUT. If Bush has lied in the present about his past; if he used his powers as governor of Texas to cover up embarrassing details of his TXANG service and "scrub" his record, Then I do care about it.
The misleading statements about TXANG aren't big lies Bush has told, but they're lies. And the coverup is a bigger deal. Both the coverup and the lies speak about Bush's character. Since Bush has made his character such an issue in the campaign, the lies and coverup matter.
It's a nice glib piece of spin to claim Sullivan is a single-issue gay-rights advocate, but it's simply false. Simply another piece of misleading spin. As Paul Simon wrote "Some people say a lie's a lie's a lie, but l say why, Why deny the obvious child? why deny the obvious child?"
One other page to check out is campaigndesk. . It isn't exactly a blog, but it's got excellent media criticism (and even occasional praise). It's put out by the Columbia School of Journalism.
Finally, and this one's in no way a blog, ABC News' TheNote summarizes and links a lot of political reporting every day. TheNote has much more praise than criticism, but during the political season it's part of my essential daily reading.
>> would have voted for the war,
Actually, what Kerry said is that he still would have voted to give the president the authority to go to war. That's rather different. Especially when you put it in context with what that authority means. As Kerry has pointed out, the president can go to war without Congress's vote. As Kerry has pointed out, Clinton went to Bosnia without Congressional authority. As Kerry has explained, the purpose of the authority is to try and give the Senate some influence over the war decision.
The swift boat stuff was all concerned actions 30+ years ago. Did Kerry tell recent lies about those actions? I don't think so -- all the fact checking I've seen supports Kerry and says the swift boat gang are liars.
Did Bush lie recently about his National Guard service? It appears he did. It appears Bush never completed his NG duty, and continues to claim he did. It also appears Bush is deceiving us somehow about what he did in Alabama. It also appears Bush engaged in a coverup, using his powers as governor of Texas to "cleanse" his record.
Now these aren't big lies Bush has told, but they're lies. And the coverup is a bigger deal. Both the coverup and the lies speak about Bush's character. Since Bush has made his character such an issue in the campaign, the lies and coverup matter.
You're thinking DRAM, with one transister per bit, but slow (plus it needs refreshing every 60msec or so). Static RAM is mucho faster, with 4 to 8 transistors per bit.
Also, your math is in error. 500M transistors for 70 Mbits works out to 7 transistors per bit. I'm guessing the visible portion of the chip will be 64Mbits and 6 transistors/bit, with most the rest of the transistors allocated as spares. When you make a chip that big, you can boost yield by making spare blocks of memory that during manufacturing can be substituted for bad areas on the chip.
I haven't seen "Fahrenheit 9/11" yet. But I have no doubt that Michael Moore combines selective presentation of the truth with innuendo and implication to deceive viewers and drag Bush through the muck. Reprehensible, sure.
But while we're on the subject, who does Moore remind you of? Let's make a little list. On the left wing, you might say Al Franken, though I don't believe he's nearly as much of a muck-raker as Moore; Franken's books mostly expose the dirty tricks of the muck-rakers on the right wing. Now we'll add those muck-rakers to our list: Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Savage (I'll exclude Matt Drudge because he only claims to be 80% truthful).
We all know that we're going to hear a load of high dudgeon from the punditry about Michael Moore, but how many of these pundits have ever taken a real honest stand against the year-in year-out deceptions of Coulter, Hannity, Ingraham, et al.? (from now on I'll abbreviate them as CHILOS.)
According to http://www.kmbz.com/schedule.asp, Limbaugh and Savage broadcast 15 hours per week; O'Reilly and Ingraham 10. That's on radio. On TV O'Reilly and Hannity have five hours each per week; Coulter probably guests an hour a month. Moore's average is closer to a few hours per year. And you have to pay nine bucks to see Moore's film. Why all the fuss amongst pundits? Is Moore really that much more dangerous than CHILOS?
I think the real danger Moore presents is that any pundit with any pretensions of honesty will no longer be able to remain silent about CHILOS. It's starting to happen already: P. J. O'Rourke's recent Atlantic article "I Agree with Me" looks like a pre-emptive house cleaning so he can attack Moore with a clearer conscience. All of a sudden, O'Rourke discovers what's been going on in talk radio for the last decade, and he doesn't like it. Doesn't have the guts to call it lies, but something about it rubs P. J. the wrong way. Well, it's a start.
But being honest about CHILOS a few years too late is tantamount to admitting that you've been dishonest about them and their corrosive effect on the national discourse up until now. Are CHILOS liars? Is Moore a liar? Well, technically, Moore decieves with the truth, and we have a long and hallowed history of allowing that kind of deception. And Moore has a serious fact checking team to back up every word in his film. How about CHILOS? In their relatively unexamined state, and with all the hours of airtime they must fill, they get away with many more lies; especially Limbaugh.
Sidebar: Is there really a distinction between "intentionally deceiving with the truth" and "lying"? Gadzooks! If we don't draw that distinction, we'll throw out 90% of the art of modern American politics. Political campaigns consist mostly of attempts to decieve, using selective truth. What in the world would we do with ourselves if "intentionally deceiving with the truth" were held in the same contempt as "lying"? Do we dare to contemplate it?
And then there are the troubling questions: why are these corroders of our public discourse, these professional slimers and character assassinators, these right-wing equivalents of Michael Moore, always so on-message with the RNC? Of course it's because the RNC sends them the latest oppo research and talking points. Horrors; it's almost as if the RNC doesn't give a damn about the truth except as a weapon of mass deception. Pundit, do you dare to go there? Of course, you can argue that the DNC distributes oppo research too, but in the last 3 election cycles a whole lot more RNC oppo found its way into the news shows and newspapers. So Let's make Michael Moore a litmus test. I think you'll find the left wing a whole lot more willing to be honest about Moore and his methods than the right wing has been about CHILOS
Thank you (all repliers) for the pointers to gnome-print and especially for pointing me to scribus. It looks great, and I'm adding it to my toolbox!
according to the roadmap, pdf and eps export will arrive at milestone 9 (inkscape 0.43). The project has currently completed milestone 4 (inkscape 0.39, though .38 is what sourceforge has for download).
It'll start to get real interesting for me when I can make .eps and .pdf objects
I believe the speed was due to many factors. Here are a few.
thanks for the quadrics pointer!
So each node is directly connected to six ajacent nodes. Contrast this with the Thinking Machines Connection Machine CM2 topology, which had 2^N nodes connected in an N dimensional hypercube. So each node in a 16384 node CM2 was directly connected to 16 other nodes. There's a theorem that you can always embed a lower dimensional torus in an N dimensional hypercube, so the CM2 had all the benefits of a torus and more. This topology was criticized because you never needed as much connectivity as you got in the higher node-count machines, to CM2 was in effect selling you too much wiring.
Thinking Machines changed the topology to fat trees in the CM5. One of the cool things about the fat tree is it allows you to buy as much connectivity as you need. I'm really surprised that it seems to have died when Thinking Machines collapsed. On the other hand, any kind of 3D mesh is probably pretty good for simulating physics in 3D. You can have each node model a block of atmosphere for a weather simulation, or a little wedge of hydrogen for an H-bomb simulation. But it might be useful to have one more dimension of connection for distributing global results to the nodes.