Missing votes

Why these machines need to have a voter verified and auditable (is that a word?) paper trail:

Three years after helping render punch-card voting systems obsolete, Broward County voters have proven that no election system is foolproof.

In Tuesday's special election to fill state House seat 91, 134 Broward voters managed to use the 2-year-old touch-screen equipment without casting votes for any candidate.

How so many happened to cast nonvotes remains a riddle. Unlike with punch cards or paper ballots, there's no paper record with electronic voting that might offer a clue to the voter's intent.

The percentage of nonvotes -- 1.3 percent -- is modest compared to the days of ''hanging'' and ''pregnant chads.'' But in Tuesday's race, every vote was crucial. In a seven-candidate field, Ellyn Bogdanoff beat Oliver Parker by just 12 votes.

''These were the new machines,'' said Chas Brady, a spokesman for Parker's campaign. ``This was not supposed to happen.''

- rob 4:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Diplomacy: Powell Admits No Hard Proof in Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda

WASHINGTON, Jan. 8 — Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded Thursday that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no "smoking gun" proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda.

"I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection," Mr. Powell said, in response to a question at a news conference. "But I think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at the time that we did."

Mr. Powell's remarks on Thursday were a stark admission that there is no definitive evidence to back up administration statements and insinuations that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda, the acknowledged authors of the Sept. 11 attacks. Although President Bush finally acknowledged in September that there was no known connection between Mr. Hussein and the attacks, the impression of a link in the public mind has become widely accepted — and something administration officials have done little to discourage. Emphasis mine.

New definition for 'consider': Kill thousands, sacrifice hundreds of American soldier's lives, remove 150 billion (and growing) from our treasury, and destroy our international standing. Wow, what happens when the "reconsider."

- rob 2:40 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush in 30 Seconds

Now vote for the funniest, the best animated video, or the best one by the younger set.

the funniest ones are almost all winners.

- rob 2:37 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush tax cut a success



Billions added to the national debt, but December's 1,000 new jobs are sure to fill up the Treasury department's vaults.

Unemployment Rate Falls; Few Jobs Added

WASHINGTON -- The nation's unemployment rate dropped to 5.7 percent in December to the lowest level in 14 months, but employers finished the year without many help wanted signs for the holidays, adding just 1,000 new jobs.

The 0.2 percentage point drop in the jobless rate occurred because fewer people were looking for work, the Labor Department said Friday. More than 300,000 people gave up their search for jobs and dropped out of the pool of available workers.

"The rate is going down, but it is going down for the wrong reasons," said Bill Cheney, chief economist at John Hancock Financial Services, noting that it fell not because people were finding work. "That doesn't make you feel really good about the state of the jobs market." Emphasis Mine.

Upon hearing of these incredibly depressing statistics, "Bubble Boy" Bush noted that at this rate, it will only take around 200 years to get the job level back to where it was when he became President.

"Unemployment dropped today to 5.7 percent . That's not good enough -- we want more people still working," the president told a gathering of women small business owners at the Commerce Department. "But nevertheless, it is a positive sign that the economy is getting better."

Bush also noted that next month's job growth of 2,000 will be met with praise by the media that job growth has accelerated by 100%. And the additiona 600,000 people who gave up searching for jobs will make unemployment drop down to 5.3%. What a success.

- rob 2:34 PM - [PermaLink] -

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An accurate report on the accurate reporting of Dean's anger problem.

From a comedy show of course.

Angry Dean

If you have real player, it is worth the download time (which shouldn't be much, unless you are on a modem).

- rob 2:09 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush Acts to Reward Companies Who Cut off Seniors' Drug Coverage

Late last year, President Bush promised retirees that "if there's a Medicare reform bill signed by me, corporations have no intention to dump retirees [from their existing drug coverage]...What we're talking about is trust."1 The White House and its congressional allies backed up Bush's assertion by claiming the bill included a special tax subsidy to "encourage employers' to retain prescription-drug coverage" for their retirees' and not to cut them off.2

But just three months after Bush's pledge, the Wall Street Journal now reports that the White House quietly added "a little-noticed provision" to the bill that allows companies to severely reduce - or almost completely terminate - their retirees' drug coverage "without losing out on the new subsidy."3 In other words, the president did not just break his promise to sign a bill that prevents seniors from losing their existing drug coverage. He actually acted to reward companies who cut off their retirees with a lavish new tax break.

Just another day living under the kakistocracy. (actual definition: Government by the least qualified or most unprincipled citizens)

- rob 2:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Elated to be Elevated

'High' Terror Alert Ends

Looks like many of our store products are out of date again, we're back to yello.

I think we may need to start selling a "mellow yellow" shirt.

- rob 12:25 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A good cause

Bam, Iran Earthquake Victims Relief Fund

(design of the site done by a friend)

- rob 12:22 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Fox News Editorial Planning Meetings

I just found on the web a video of a Fox News editorial meeting, I thought you all might enjoy: View the quictime video

- rob 12:15 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush: Never met a spending bill he didn't like.

Bush May Get Through Term With No Vetoes

If anyone tries to defend Bush by pointing out congress sets the spending (despite it being a repulbican congress), please point out that Bush has NEVER vetoed a bill.

Bush seems to be quite the John Quincy Adams buff:

GWB and JQA: The only Presidents to never veto a bill
GWB and JQA: The only Presidents who were sons of previous Presidents
GWB and JQA: Did not receive the most votes in the election that brought them to power
GWB (pending) and JQA: Both only served for one term.

- rob 11:19 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Army OKs Halliburton Waiver for Oil Deal

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Army said on Tuesday it had granted Halliburton (NYSE:HAL - news) a special waiver to bring fuel into Iraq (news - web sites) under a no-bid deal with a Kuwaiti supplier despite a draft Pentagon (news - web sites) audit that found evidence of overcharging for fuel.
...

Corps chief Lt. Gen. Robert Flowers signed the waiver on Dec. 19 that Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root did not have to give certified "cost and pricing data" related to a sole-source contract with Kuwait's Altanmia Commercial Marketing Company for fuel. Emphasis Mine.

Become a defense contractor and you to can do no wrong (and earn billions!).

- rob 11:14 AM - [PermaLink] -

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I'm becoming a Willie Nelso fan?

Willie Nelson: Whatever Happened to Peace on Earth?

There's so many things going on in the world
Babies dying
Mothers crying
How much oil is one human life worth
And what ever happened to peace on earth

We believe everything that they tell us
They're gonna' kill us
So we gotta' kill them first
But I remember a commandment
Thou shall not kill
How much is that soldier's life worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth

(Bridge)
And the bewildered herd is still believing
Everything we've been told from our birth
Hell they won't lie to me
Not on my own damn TV
But how much is a liar's word worth
And whatever happened to peace on earth

So I guess it's just
Do unto others before they do it to you
Let's just kill em' all and let God sort em' out
Is this what God wants us to do

- rob 11:11 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Retro Draft

Army Order Aims To Stretch Ranks

Desperate to stretch its limited ranks, the U.S. Army is expected this week to prohibit still more soldiers now in Iraq and soon to be deployed there from leaving military service.

Army officials declined to say which or how many soldiers would be affected when it expands its "stop-loss" program, which already prevents soldiers in certain heavily used specialties from leaving the military or being reassigned to other units.

But the last such edict, issued Nov. 13, covered all of the more than 110,000 active-duty soldiers whose units are scheduled to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan between now and May.

The announcement of a further expansion of the program, which Army officials confirmed is imminent, comes amid evidence that the Army is straining to meet its growing commitments around the world.

So if you sign a contract for a term of duty to the Army you have to fulfill it or go to jail, but when it expires the Army just says "nah, we still need you." And tah dah! You are drafted, even though we don't have a draft.

Though if Bush gets re-elected we will have a draft, that is the simple truth.

- rob 11:10 AM - [PermaLink] -

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By the way

Media Whores Online is back.

- rob 5:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Funny

Robertson's Divine Intervention on Bush

Click Here

Excerpt:

Pat Robertson said Friday he believes God has told him Bush will be re-elected in a "blowout" in November.

"I think George Bush is going to win in a walk," Robertson said on his whore TV show.
"I really believe I'm hearing from the Lord it's going to be like a blowout election in 2004. It's shaping up that way." .

Well, since God knows what He's talking about, and can't be wrong, that means there's no need for the Republicans to bother voting on election day. Plus, voting for Bush would be seen as a slap at God's credibility. it's probably a sin for a Republican to vote for Bush - so this is good news.

If you want to anger God and risk an eternity in Hell, go ahead and vote for the murderer.

- rob 5:10 PM - [PermaLink] -

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They call it the Labor department because it involves pain, but without the cute little child at the end.

Labor Dept. offers ways not to pay overtime

WASHINGTON - The Labor Department is giving employers tips on how to avoid paying overtime to some of the 1.3 million low-income workers who would become eligible under new rules expected to be finalized early this year.

The department's advice comes even as it touts the $895 million in increased wages that it says those workers would be guaranteed from the reforms.

Among the options for employers: cut workers' hourly wages and add the overtime to equal the original salary, or raise salaries to the new $22,100 annual threshold, making them ineligible.

- rob 4:46 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Taking PATH to the new WTC station.

When heading into New York City yesterday for the film screening I left extra time to take the PATH train to the new WTC station that has opened in the whole that is referred to as ground zero.

Though I've been to NYC many times since 9/11, this was my first time back to lower Manhattan. I really wasn't ready until now. In the late eighties/early nineties when I lived in the city, I worked at Banker's Trust for two years, first taking the World Trade Center PATH train to Jersey City every day for a year, and then working at the Banker's Trust tower right across the street from the WTC for a year.

When I moved back to the NYC area in 1999 I would commute into the city everyday, for much of my first year back, to the same WTC PATH station. I remember when I first moved back feeling an eerie nostalgia of being back a decade later taking the same escalator up into the basement of the two towers. Now just a few years after that the experience was just overpowering sadness.

You come out of the tunnel that goes under the Hudson and you are right in the pit, if I had known ahead of time I might have been a bit more prepared. The station itself is stuck onto the church street side of the pit, like a modern cliff side dwelling. Moving up the escalators it became very unnerving as the walls are nothing more than pro-New York slogans on thin plastic sheeting hiding the chain link fencing that separates us from the rest of the hole. The station layout was almost exactly the same as it was before. I was again in the station I had been in over a 1,000 times, but this time, there was nothing above me.

Here is an excellent slide show of the new station and its construction.

Coming out on Church street it was amazing and wonderful to see everything back to normal. The Christmas decorations were up, the model thin millennium Hotel doing business, it looked like Century 21 had expanded (discount department store), and even the goofy Burger King on the corner of Liberty and Church Street was doing a brisk business. When it opened in 1990 fast food restaurants were very very rare in Manhattan (I know that is hard to believe now), so to make it more "special" for the first month or so when this Burger King opened it had a person playing music during lunch hour on an organ, and a red carpet that featured two "door women" wearing fishnet stockings who said all day long "welcome to Burger King."

That seemed to be the only thing left in business on Liberty heading east. Here the store fronts were still damaged and still closed and there draped in black was the Banker's Trust building I had worked for a year in over a decade ago. A cloth covered tower with a basically gutted interior. Here's a good video showing the building (warning requires real Video).

Along the fence the surrounds the pit (ground zero) were memorials, the history of lower Manhattan, photos of 9/11, and lists of the dead. On the lists were post it notes from family members: "happy birthday, we miss you" and more. I didn't want to read them, they weren't there for me to read.

People in other parts of America seemed to happily chant "Remember 9/11" as they supported the war in Iraq. A crime on top of a crime. The Bush Administration has turned the nation's anger and outrage not at the enemy (bin Laden and Al Quaeda) but to a 3rd party, an evil and despicable 3rd party without question, but a 3rd party nonetheless. The destruction and deaths were turned into an excuse to finish family business and to reward donors. It is as simple and tragic as that. It wasn't to make America safer. If Bush wanted America safer, first responders would be fully funded, port security would be fully funded, and troops would be scouring the hills of East Pakistan. Instead our troops are getting food poisoning from Halliburton (via KBR) in a destroyed country that doesn't want us there.

In a horrible admission to the Bush Administration's co-opting 9/11 for political purposes, the Republican Party holds their 2004 convention in Manhattan near the anniversary date. This will make Karl Rove's Aircraft Carrier blunder simply disappear, because this is going to pan out to be the biggest political misstep for decades to come. New Yorkers sense the truth about what is being done in the name of their loved ones. The nation is starting to. It'll all become apparent at the end of August.

- rob 4:37 PM - [PermaLink] -

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SHELTER DOGS - A documentary film by Cynthia Wade

Following our tradition of mentioning great but depressing films, I thought I'd recommend Shelter Dogs which will have its national TV premiere on HBO Tues. January 27 at 7:30pm EST. I went to the screening last night and there was many a tear during many parts. Excellent film.

from the site: Each day, hundreds of thousands of stray and unwanted dogs are born around the world. How society should care for these homeless animals -- many of whom end up at animal shelters -- is a controversial topic with significant humanitarian and public health implications.
...

Some of the dogs are immediately placed in wonderful, permanent homes. But there are also troubling moral dilemmas surrounding some of the "gray area" dogs. If a dog bites a shelter worker, is it ethical to adopt him out to the general public? If a dog guards his food, can he be trusted in a family with children? And what about the dogs that never find homes -- is it more humane to sentence them to a lifetime in the shelter or to euthanize them?

Site note (and off topic), what is it about human nature that makes people (in general) cry more for the suffering of an animal than a human? Is there some genetic pre-disposition to the original sin concept? i.e. the human isn't all good while an animal is pure? I always hear that in war you must dehumanize your enemy so you can kill them and still live with yourself, while in movies you have to dehumanize you character if you want a LOT of sympathy. How's that for unfair generalizations?

Oh, I guess I should disclose that I'm a friend of the director and of the co-producer, but that aside it is still a great film. Wow, does this mean this site has higher ethical standards than George Will?

- rob 12:17 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Thanks to Atrios:

State's abstinence-only sex education doesn't work any better, report says

Actually, it works a lot worse.

The Minnesota researchers surveyed 413 kids who were taught the abstinence-only curriculum at one school in each of three counties. They found over the course of the year that the rate of those who said they were sexually active increased from 5.8 to 12.4 percent, and that the rate of those who said they would probably have sex before finishing high school increased from 9.5 to 17 percent.

But you see the issue isn't children having children, or even children having sex. The issue is condoms. Condoms are bad bad bad, and Bush administration avoids them at all costs, lives be damned. Heck their condom hatred has already effected a member of George's immediate family.

Bush: "I had sexual intercourse with perhaps three or four, I don't remember the exact number, women, at different times. In Thailand once, I have a pretty clear recollection that there was one time in Thailand and in Hong Kong."

Brown: "And you were married to Mrs. Bush?"

Bush: "Yes."

Brown: "Is that where you caught the venereal diseases?"

Bush: "No."

Brown: "Where did you catch those?"

Bush: "Diseases plural? I didn't catch..."

Brown: "Well, I'm sorry. How ... how many venereal diseases do you suffer from?"

Bush: "I've had one venereal disease."

Brown: "Which was?"

Bush: "Herpes."

(quotes taken from: Talking dirty with Neil Bush) Umm... not even using a condom when sleeping with a prostitute, talk about an irrational hatred of a tiny piece of rubber.

So we shouldn't be surprised that the Bush administration is willing to sacrifice lies for the sake of its condom fear:

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and USAID have removed or revised fact sheets on condoms, excising information about their effectiveness in disease prevention, and promoting abstinence instead.

From: White House scrubs websites and lies about it, a great article.

- rob 2:21 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Beyond Redemption: The Crimes of Tom Delay

A very nice summary of the crimes of Tom Delay, a guy who makes Bush look... ummm... not as bad (which is probably the point I guess).

• Nov 2000: Delay Tries to Intimidate Supreme Court Judges to Fix Election Outcome
  
• Nov 28 2000: Tom Delay Finances Trip of 'Rioters' to Florida to Disrupt the Presidential Election Recount
  
• Dec. 2000: Washington Post Scrubs Photo of Florida Rioters that Shows Delays Staff
  
• Feb 2001 (report on campaign 2000): Delay's Daughter Launders $60,000 in Donations in 2000 for Daddy
  
• January 2001: Delay uses Corporate Slush Fund to Finance Ads Attacking Democrats Who Oppose Ashcroft's Nomination
  
• April 12, 2001: Delay Sells Meetings with Bush to Top GOP Donors

seeesh, I'm still only in the spring of 2001. If you want to continue getting disgusted about Delay, go read the article.

- rob 2:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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FBI seeks confidentiality waivers from Bush staffers

Get Ashcroft out of the way and things start to happen.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- FBI agents investigating the leak of the name of a CIA operative are asking senior Bush administration officials to waive confidentiality agreements they have with reporters, government sources said Friday.

The aim is to be able to force reporters who may have received information about the CIA operative to talk to investigators.

- rob 2:07 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Mad Cow Forces Beef Industry to Change Course

Q: How do you make a cow mad?
A: Make him eat his friends and neighbors.

That's the story folks, greedy disgusting business practices bite the businesses back.

They stopped that practice a few years back of course, but not in time to stop that one cow, who was so sick they had to drag him to slaughter (a practice now stopped a few weeks too late to stop the beef industry to lose potentially billions).

Jeffrey Behling, a dairy farmer in Washington State, used to burn the carcasses of his hobbled "downer" cattle until he found there was a market for their meat. Even so, selling damaged cows for human consumption never sat well with Mr. Behling, who in 2001 briefly had in his feedlot the Holstein cow identified last month as the downer with mad cow disease.

"It's an absurd practice," Mr. Behling, 44, said in an interview. "Foolishness caused by maybe a certain amount of greed."

In many ways I'm a libertarian, but I can't get rid of government regulation completely because for libertarianism to work it needs two things:

1. Business to understand LONG term consequences of their acts.
   
2. Consumers to be educated about business practices (and thus requiring an independent media).

Greed is generally the main reason why businesses lose money long term.

- rob 2:05 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush in 30 Seconds

Amazing advertisements, better then what we'll probably eventually see aired by the DNC ("don't know commercials").

I recommend:

WHAT ARE WE TEACHING OUR CHILDREN?
CHILD'S PAY

those two I think would play best on the television (you can never beat cute kids), but very some other very effective ads are:

IN MY COUNTRY (might not play well in all of America)
IMAGINE (too complex I think for wide play)
BUSH'S REPAIR SHOP

Note: links go to pages which contain quicktime video.

- rob 1:59 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that we are to stand by the president, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American people."
- Teddy Roosevelt



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 - Franklin Delano Roosevelt



"I am not an advocate for frequent changes in laws and Constitutions, but laws must and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened, as new discoveries are made, new truths discovered and manners and opinions change, with the change of circumstances, institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors."
- Thomas Jefferson



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"All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree."
- James Madison



"I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves."
- John F. Kennedy



"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
- Dwight D. Eisenhower

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"There's nothing wrong with America that can't be fixed by what's right with America." - Bill Clinton.