We are violent

Nothing incenses me more than when "President" Bush -- so-called leader of the free world -- steps arrogantly up to the "official" dais, looks down his nose at the rest of us, and declares, "We're a peaceful nation."

Like hell we are. Bunch of goddamn murderers.

And all who disagree? What goes around comes around. Read history, and tell me I'm full of shit.

I dare you.

- Michael 11:51 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Wow, this really sucks

"Wow, this really sucks!"

"Yeah, it does, you stupid piece of shit."*

*Fantasied conversation with a fellow American from "the Heartland"

- Michael 10:02 AM - [PermaLink] -

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As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.

Well that say it all doesn't it: Police scoff at Ashcroft speech

- rob 3:25 PM - [PermaLink] -

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From the woman with horns coming out of her head (well that's what Zell Miller sees)

Dowd: A Plague of Toadies

In ancient Greece, the prince of Tyre tires of all the yes men around him. He chooses to trust the one courtier who intrepidly tells him: "They do abuse the king that flatter him. ... Whereas reproof, obedient and in order, fits kings, as they are men, for they may err.''

Not flatter the king? Listen to dissenting viewpoints? Rulers who admit they've erred?

It's all so B.C. (Before Cheney).

Now, in the 21st-century reign of King George II, flattery is mandatory, dissent is forbidden, and erring without admitting error is the best way to get ahead. President Bush is purging the naysayers who tried to temper crusted-nut-bar Dick Cheney and the neocon crazies on Iraq.

- rob 3:19 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Today's quick "election fraud" update (yes I know nothing will come of this, if anything does the Supreme Court will step in... but you know what... we have to do this, otherwise 2006, 2008, etc. all those future votes will be meaningless if we don't fight now to point out the problems)

• Are there people out there who still honestly think the electronic voting machines that had no verifiable paper trail were a good idea? If so, maybe they should read this article, and after doing so maybe they should get a job that doesn't entail weakening our democracy. New statewide election possible

  BEAUFORT -- Elections workers and reporters crammed themselves into a tiny storage room Tuesday and angled for their best views of a black metal box the size of a large briefcase.
  And then they studied a three-word electronic message -- "Voter log full" -- that some in the room, deep down, had hoped wouldn't appear.
  
  The warning message indicated that a computer tallying votes in coastal Carteret County had reached its limit at 3,016 electronic ballots.
  
  If only someone had seen the same message a few weeks ago, when the votes actually mattered.
  
  Tuesday's exercise was the latest in an investigation into an embarrassing, and possibly costly, voting problem. Because of problems with the county's voting machine, North Carolina may have to hold another statewide election to pick an agriculture commissioner.

  This time it is an error that probably messed up the numbers for Republican candidates... well maybe now it will get attention.
  
  
• and things are still going on in Ohio as Olbermann posts from his undisclosed location: Ohio undervotes

  Yet when the votes were tallied, 168 of the 611 voters had made no choice for president. Unless these were the famed undecideds we heard so much about in the closing weeks of the campaigns, something went terribly wrong. 27 and a half percent of the voters in that “Washington X” precinct in Montgomery County officially didn’t have a presidential preference.
  
  This was the high point of the Daily News’ investigative analysis of the still-unofficial voting results in its county— or more properly, perhaps, the low point. The paper discovered that of the 284, 650 votes in Montgomery, a total of 5,693 registered no valid vote for president. And the percentages were significantly higher in the 231 precincts that wound up voting for Kerry (2.8%) than did the 354 that wound up voting for Bush (1.6%).
  
  Besides Washington X, a second County precinct exceeded 27% ‘undercount,’ as the election professionals, such as they are, call it. Washington X, Kettering 3-A, and five of the other top ten ‘undercount’ precincts by percentage wound up supporting Bush.
  
  Since, as the papers note, political scientists suggested that the poor and the lesser-educated are presumed to have more trouble with punch card voting, there are several logical disconnects here. Given the outcomes in those two precincts, Washington X and Kettering 3-A, were those mostly Bush voters who managed to blank out more than a quarter of their own ballots, or did the precincts wind up voting for Bush because more than a quarter of the ballots had no valid presidential vote?
  
  What happened in the voting precincts in Moraine, Ohio? 2,557 votes were cast at seven sites there. The President won the city by 2%. The number of ballots without a valid presidential vote was 5.6%.
  
  What do the state undercounts in Ohio look like? Did they reduce Bush’s margin of victory? Did they eliminate votes for Kerry? What the hell happened?
  
  The least likely explanations are that these people couldn’t make up their minds, or screwed up only the presidential part of their ballots.

  
  
• And here's a story that probably would get a lot of play except that it comes from UC Berkeley, which despite being a very fine school is located in, well, Berkeley.
  
  UC Berkeley Study Questions Florida E-Vote Count

  A research team at UC Berkeley will report that irregularities
  associated with electronic voting machines may have awarded
  130,000 - 260,000 or more excess votes to President George W. Bush in
  Florida in the 2004 presidential election. The study shows an unexplained
  discrepancy between votes for President Bush in counties where electronic
  voting machines were used versus counties using traditional voting
  methods. Discrepancies this large or larger rarely arise by chance -- the
  probability is less than 0.1 percent

- rob 2:55 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Imagine a country where a man becomes a powerful figure head, a symbol of a nation, based only on the family he is born to.

Imagine that man believes he actually desirves his power and status.

The sad thing is you didn't even have to imagine did you? You thought of George.

But we faught a war agaisnt that notion. We faught George and won.

No, see I was talking about England (you know, the one's we faught) where some have also not learned that lesson:

Prince's blast at people who get above their station

In a scathing memo, written to a third party in response to a request from a former Clarence House secretary for more training at work, Charles complained that young people nowadays think they can be pop stars, high court judges or even heads of state without putting in the work or having the "natural ability".

The secretary in question, Elaine Day, was described in the memo by Charles as "so PC it frightens me rigid".

Ms Day, who is claiming sex discrimination and unfair dismissal against the prince's household, described it as "hierarchical and elitist", an institution run in an "Edwardian fashion" where everyone knew their place and those who did not were punished.

A personal assistant to private secretaries at Clarence House for five years, Ms Day told the tribunal she was forced out earlier this year because she "rocked the boat at the palace". She said she was left "isolated and humiliated" after complaining about sexual harassment from her boss, assistant private secretary Paul Kefford.

Clarence House has said it will "vigorously" contest the case, which is being heard in Croydon, south London, and is expected to last three days.

The memo was written by the prince in response to a suggestion by Ms Day that personal assistants with university degrees should be given the opportunity to train to become private secretaries, the hearing was told.

In the memo, the prince wrote: "What is wrong with everyone nowadays?

"Why do they all seem to think they are qualified to do things far beyond their technical capabilities?

"Natural abilities" and "technical capabilities" being defined as good breeding I guess. Kind of like Senator Frist's book "Good People Beget Good People".

See that blur? That's a visual artifact of us traveling backwards in time.

- rob 2:19 PM - [PermaLink] -

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strangely and sadly this rings true: Bush Apponts Horse to Cabinet Post

WASHINGTON DC - US President George W Bush, in a bold move, has nominated Incitatus, a horse, to replace departing Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman. This is the first time an Equine American has ever been recommended for such a high-ranking cabinet position.

The President praised Incitaus as "an inspiration to critters all across this great nation. The horse holds an honored role in American history, and it is long past due that one of their kind should be given a place at the table, overseeing our agricultural policy".
...
Republican leaders were quick to laud the President's choice. "This is a brilliant move, and is sure to shore up the President's credibility in rural America", said one high ranking Republican official. "It's positively Reaganesque".
Senate Democrats are anxious to avoid the appearance of being obstructionists, and indicated that they are inclined to approve the nomination, working with the president in a spirit of bi-partisanship. "Given the President's unprecedented re-election mandate, we feel that our job is to just facilitate his appointments", said a high ranking Senate Democrat.

- rob 1:35 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush Plans Tax Code Overhaul
Changes Would Favor Investment, Growth

Or you could also headline it as:

Bush Plans New Giveaways For Friends
Changes Would Favor People to Rich to Work, Leave Actual Productive People Without Health Insurance

Instead the administration plans to push major amendments that would shield interest, dividends and capitals gains from taxation, expand tax breaks for business investment and take other steps intended to simplify the system and encourage economic growth, according to several people who are advising the White House or are familiar with the deliberations.

The changes are meant to be revenue-neutral. To pay for them, the administration is considering eliminating the deduction of state and local taxes on federal income tax returns and scrapping the business tax deduction for employer-provided health insurance, the advisers said.

I don't know how you can read those paragraphs and think that is a good idea or fair. And guess what, as much as I'm not happy with the idea of a scoiety based almost solely on consumerism, it has been proven that if you want a good economy you give money to those who spend it. Yes investment is good for the economy, but spending it is better and Bush's changes take away money from the people who spend the highest portion of their incomes.

- rob 1:09 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Iraqi’s killing by Marine dominates Arab media

Unfortunately, the philosophy of militant Islam is seductive, especially to the poorer population of the Islamic world. It has a great narrative – “until the 1700s we were the strongest people on the earth; over the past 300 years, the West has constantly attacked us, held us down, culminating in the destruction of the Ottoman Caliphate after WWI.” It is a narrative of oppression, with a clearly defined oppressor (the West), and a clear series of actions necessary to rectify the situation (step 1: get the West out of the Muslim World).

Confronted with this ideology, we need to be clear whether it makes better strategic sense to destroy the ideologues or to convince a population that these ideologues work against their best interests. Do we attack the folks who are spreading these beliefs, organizing downtrodden people, and launching attacks? Or do we make clear to the Muslim world that the West, after admittedly oppressing the Middle East for several centuries (The French and the English did it long before America got involved, and we’re all bound together under the label of the West), now wants to help them out?

For a liberal hawk, the clear answer is the latter. In attacking Afghanistan, we implicitly accepted the responsibility to fix it, make it better – make it a shining example of how the West has the best interests of the population at heart. And this is potentially a great first step in convincing the Muslim world we don't disdain the. Sadly, we didn’t do that. Instead of focusing more of our military and civil might on Afghanistan, making the whole country safe and really convincing the Afghanis we were going to help them lift themselves out of the mess they’ve been in . . . well, forever, we decided to put the country on the back burner and apply the Afghanistan template to Iraq. So instead of finishing one operation then tackling another, we decided to tackle two at the same time, secure in nothing more than the hope that the Iraqis would greet us with the same adulation the Afghanis gave us.

There was a time for an Iraq war. Though Saddam was largely contained, the suffering that containment produced in both Iraq and the general Middle East needed to be dealt with . . . eventually. The problem with launching the Iraq war when we did is hawkish liberals considered the most important point of these fights – convincing the Muslim people the West isn’t against them – that they can be confident (despite past actions) we stand side by side with their people, thereby undercutting the propaganda of nihilist Wahabbism.

That’s an important distinction of message. What I see and read now, the Iraq war seems a war of retribution more than a war of liberation. As the MSNBC article shows, the Arab media makes that distinction even more clear. And that perception comes from stories such as these. It is not clear why the soldier shot the wounded man on the ground – but precisely that doubt is what damages our reputation. If we truly want to win a war against an ideology, our only hope is to undercut the premises on which that ideology is based.

- Alex 10:56 AM - [PermaLink] -

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A Reactive Force

Presently our troops in Iraq react and run to the presence of insurgents. We attack Falluja so the insurgents pop up in Mosul we go to Mosul and the insurgents pop up in Tal Afar. Etc.

In the late eighties when I lived in New York this city was averaging around 7 murders a day. There were problems. The police were a reactionary force. They patrolled areas after the crimes happened. It was joked that the safest place in the city to be was in the northern part of central park in the days following the central park jogger attack. Pretty much every officer in Manhattan was there... well until a well publicized crime occurred elsewhere.

What changed? Why is New York so much safer now? A lot of people attribute it all to Giuliani, but while he deserves a little credit, much or what happened was out of his control:

• The general age of the population went up
• Heroin replaced crack as the drug of choice (a heroin addict isn't as dangerous, still a bad thing, but less dangerous).

But most of all this is what made the crime go away:

• The economy improved
• There were more jobs and they paid better.

Pretty obvious isn't it. And it made a big difference. Giuliani did help as he did enact some very common sense ideas that helped as well. The biggest was getting police out of their stations and put them back on the street. He returned beat cops to the streets of New York.

But what really made the difference was jobs. Bush didn't spend the money he was given for reconstruction, not much of it anyway, and when he did he gave the contracts to friends of his, not Iraqis. If the army wasn't disbanded, if the construction jobs went to Iraqis, if the Iraq economy actually was able to have some footing, then the situation would be a lot different.

Fighting criminals was just a small part of lowering crime in NYC. Fighting insurgents can not be our only way of fighting the violence in Iraq... Unfortunately it seems to be our only tactic right now.

- rob 8:04 AM - [PermaLink] -

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The GOP finds their inner Punk

"Rulez are for Suckas" spray painted across the capital walls.

GOP Pushes Rule Change to Protect DeLay's Post

House Republicans proposed changing their rules last night to allow members indicted by state grand juries to remain in a leadership post, a move that would benefit Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) in case he is charged by a Texas grand jury that has indicted three of his political associates, according to GOP leaders.

- rob 5:37 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A wishful thinking petition, but a good one to sign anyway: Keep Ohio Recount Non-Partisan - Ask Secretary Blackwell to Step Aside

- rob 5:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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We need a radical.

Not a liberal, not a conservative. A radical.

We can't be discussing social programs now. It is too late for that, the patient (us - the U.S.) is cancer ridden and we need to do chemo before we can work on quality of life.

America is so close to being a third world nation now it brings a tear to my eye.

Forget Democrats, forget Republicans, America needs a Radical. An anti-government, anti-big business radical.

Pretend Kerry becomes President if the fraud is proven and reversible. Like he went from soldier to peace activist in the past he needs to go from Senator to a rabid reformer.

He needs to admit and act as if America had suffered the last 4 years under an illegal rule. Arrests should be made, pardons given only if public recitation of crimes they committed (if they provide proof... no witch hunts). Some cases are unpardonable. The soon to be Attorney General Gonzales and Rumsfeld need to go down for their torture work, and the world needs to see this.

He needs to needs to point out the folly of words vs. action. Point out the abortion under Bush was up and work to bring abortion rates down, give aide and comfort to counseling and adoption services, give aide to halfway houses that take in single pregnant moms, promote adoption as an alternative, promote contraception as a preventative, and for just a little money reverse Bush's abortion trends and get this monkey off of liberal's backs. Oh and first thing he needs to do as President is revoke Bush's first act as President and allow international aide to organizations that mention abortion.

He needs to lay waste to the government. Political appointees are out, everywhere. Wonks are in. People who can do the job and are qualified, that is the new qualification to work (not the ability to say "Yes" and "Thank you sir, may I have another!"). Programs must die heck even agencies must die, weapons programs that are for the cold war must die, contracts that were done for cronies of any party must be deemed invalid and broken. It doesn't care if it is a democrat or a republican that loves the "Bureau of Rural Electrification," its lost its reason for existence decades ago - get rid of it. Much of the tax cut needs to be ended. The deficit must be wiped out - not on a ten-year plan, but immediately. The dollar is being destroyed, if it is we really can't do much.

He needs to set national, verifiable, auditable voting standards. Our status of a democracy is in serious doubt. The Senate and House's legitimacy will be in doubt if fraud is proven, use that to push this and other reforms through.

He needs to destroy corporate media, re-establish equal time rules for news broadcasts, re-establish limits on the number of ownerships of stations, and the number of stations and newspapers in one market. But teeth into the FCC, besides looking for breasts, perhaps the FCC could look at what it is supposed to look at, how the stations work to help the public good. They are using our air; let them run some educational programs, PSAs, and local programming. If they still want to air "reality TV" crap, fine, but it is our air, give us something for it.

He needs to appoint a scary ass monkey to the SEC. Anyone who has any funny business in its books should get feces thrown at it. Heavy fines. If laws were broken to increase profits the fine exceeds the money made from the scheme. Any and all means of punishing the directors who made such decisions need to be implemented. You want to help small business? Try to make big business play by the rules. A big businesses sole advantage needs to be economies of scale. That is it. No contracts with governments they don’t deserve, no regulatory advantage, no welfare. Nothing.

He needs to ignite a Culture War. There are problems with our culture. Attack the ones that both sides say they agree on, but don't. Attack sore losers, and even more so, sore winners. Attack mendacity... everywhere. Attack passing the buck and shoddy education. Ignorance is not okay or cool. Make education a plus and not something to be looked down on. Attack greed. Attack the belief that fair play is for sissys.

He needs to have audits and investigations galore. Root out any funny business or inefficiencies. Go all the way down to state and local agencies. If you don't have jurisdiction or if you can't reform them - shine a spotlight on them. Say "Looky here! Jeb's got a second book of expenses"

He needs to make America's government transparent. Release George Bush the elder's books. Admit to and apologize to America's previous mistakes. Respond quickly to FOIA requests. Expand FOIA. Hide behind "interests of national security" only if it is in the interest of national security, and make qualifying for that mean going through a rigorous test... not have Gonzales or Ashcroft going "hmmm... that makes the President look like a greedy evil dork, that isn't in the interest of national security."

Go to Iraq (well, maybe not in person), and announce "look here are laws and rules that were put in by our illegitimate President and his friends. Here's a law about how oil contracts are done and whom they go to. Here's a law about seeds and their ownerships. Here's a whole boatload of pillaging that was set into law." Get those laws revoked. Fine and punish companies that made illegal gains. Get money into the hands of Iraqi's. Actually try to rebuild the nation. Violence will ebb (slowly). International aide will come (slowly).

Admit Social Security has been used as a tax. And a regressive tax at that. For years the social security has been the government's slush fund. The budget numbers you hear have always been lies. The social security surplus has been subsidizing the government. It is only at risk because the government isn't going to pay it back. Kill its use as a slush fund. Make the payroll tax progressive. Incoming supports outgoing and that is it. If social security is running a surplus, cut the payroll taxes. If there isn't enough to cover the baby boomers when they retire increase the payroll tax and decrease the benefits. No more promises as to what it is and isn't. It is a safety net only, you need to save if you want anything above the minimum needed to live on in retirement.

Internationalize the war on terror and out flank the enemy. Really join our allies. Really join them in undercover work and infiltration, and occasionally on the military incursion, but don't leave it at that, work on mid east peace, work seriously to lift the world out of poverty and illiteracy. Quality of life and education are the biggest enemies of terrorism and radicalism (here as well).

And um... I dunno... do other stuff too.

And now back to my standard cutting and pasting.

- rob 3:22 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Another "Election Fraud?" round up (why? Well that's best summed up by the title of our first link):

• Election 2004: Lingering Suspicions

  The Internet, that wonderful engine of democracy, is rife with messages purporting to demonstrate how the U.S. presidential election results were manipulated in ways benefiting the Republicans.
  
  To start, voting analyses of selected Florida and Ohio precincts conducted by the University of Pennsylvania's Steven Freeman and independent investigator Faun Otter have revealed surprisingly high percentages for Bush. Those skeptical about the results further suggest spoiled ballots and provisional votes, which may have a disproportionate impact on the results in the areas with high concentrations of minority voters, could have made the difference.
  
  The earliest exit poll data released on Nov. 2 indicated Kerry -- who had run narrowly behind Bush but within the margin of error for most of the race -- was rolling to victory and carrying many of the battleground states, including Florida and Ohio, by higher than expected margins. These same polls also suggested the Republicans were ahead in most of the tight U.S. Senate races.
  
  By the end of the night, however, the predictions in the presidential exit were wrong while the Senate projections were largely correct.

• Why the paranoia? Why headlines like this of course: Pinellas ballot box sat ignored in office

  The unmarked brown box sat unnoticed in the Pinellas Supervisor of Elections office until Monday, two weeks after the election, when an employee cleaning a desk stumbled upon it.
  
  Inside were 268 uncounted absentee ballots.
  ...
  "If you found a couple hundred thousand votes in Ohio, that might be exciting," said Paul Bedinghaus, chairman of the Pinellas Republican Party. "I expect that human error will continue to occur as long as human beings are involved."
  
  This is the third time since Clark became election supervisor in 2000 that her office has had problems handling ballots.
  
  In the presidential race in 2000, the office neglected to count 1,400 ballots - and counted more than 900 ballots twice. In 2001, her office misplaced six absentee ballots in a Tarpon Springs city election.

  And humans will keep making mistakes that benefit the Republican party... bless their mistake prone souls.
  
  
• A republican "white hat" hacker (hacks client sites to show them their weaknesses so a "bad" hacker doesn't do it first): How to Hack the Vote: the Short Version

  Author’s Note – Did our votes count? More importantly, will they count next time? We in Information Security have been protesting the use of the poorly designed voting machines from Diebold and others, and as a result of their poor implementation and widespread use, our election remains in question and our country remains bitterly divided. Many people feel that their votes didn’t count, and for good reason. THESE SYSTEMS ARE NOT WORTHY OF OUR TRUST! In an effort to bring this to your attention, I have put together this shortened document that will show you exactly how easy it would be to break into Diebold’s GEMS software, which is the software used to tabulate regional voting results. This software runs on regular Windows machines and counts the votes from multiple precincts that may have used touch screens (which have their own problems), optically scanned punch cards, or other balloting methods. It is responsible for the accurate reporting of tens of millions of votes cast using many different types of ballots.
  
  That’s right – even if you used the older systems like punch cards, your vote can still be Hacked when the numbers all come together. Wanna see how easy it is?

  Unfortunately... it is all too easy.
  
  
• For a look at how the "actual vote" compared with the Exit Polls and how dramatic the pro Kerry shift was, check out: Complete US Exit Poll Data Confirms Net Suspicions
  
  
• Wired is on it too: Vote Recount to Settle Doubts?

  A vote recount in New Hampshire on Thursday could shed light on anomalies with election results in that state, voting activists say. And if the recount finds problems with voting machines there, it could open the way for recounts in other states, such as Florida.
  
  Presidential candidate Ralph Nader requested the recount, which will include only a small percentage of voting districts in the state where anomalies appeared in the election results. New Hampshire uses a combination of traditional paper ballots and optical-scan machines -- where voters mark a paper ballot with a pen before officials scan it through an electronic infrared reader. The anomalies occurred mostly in districts that used optical-scan machines.

  
  
• And in the end... Let's see the fun Bev is having looking through the trash in Florida (Ms. Harris often does seem like her tin foil hat is on too tight but she's been pointing out the problem with Diebold and others for years... now everyone is catching on and catching up to her): Black Box Voting update:

  Monday Bev, Andy and Kathleen came in with a film crew and asked for the FOIA request. Deanie Lowe gave it over with a smile, but Harris noticed that one item, the polling place tapes, were not copies of the real ones, but instead were new printouts, done on Nov. 15, and not signed by anyone.
  
  Harris asked to see the real ones, and they said for "privacy" reasons they can't make copies of the signed ones. She insisted on at least viewing them (although refusing to give copies of the signatures is not legally defensible, according to Berkeley elections attorney, Lowell Finley). They said the real ones were in the County Elections warehouse. It was quittin' time and an arrangment was made to come back this morning to review them.
  
  Lana Hires, a Volusia County employee who gained some notoriety in an election 2000 Diebold memo, where she asked for an explanation of minus 16,022 votes for Gore, so she wouldn't have to stand there "looking dumb" when the auditor came in, was particularly unhappy about seeing the Black Box Voting investigators in the office. She vigorously shook her head when Deanie Lowe suggested going to the warehouse.
  
  Kathleen Wynne and Bev Harris showed up at the warehouse at 8:15 Tuesday morning, Nov. 16. There was Lana Hires looking especially gruff, yet surprised. She ordered them out. Well, they couldn't see why because there she was, with a couple other people, handling the original poll tapes. You know, the ones with the signatures on them. Harris and Wynne stepped out and Volusia County officials promptly shut the door.
  
  There was a trash bag on the porch outside the door. Harris looked into it and what do you know, but there were poll tapes in there.

Thanks to The Daily Kos where I found many of these pieces.

- rob 3:19 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Thank you Bush for making the world a safer place!

Pakistan's Khan Gave Iran Bomb-Grade Uranium

VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran obtained weapons-grade uranium and a design for a nuclear bomb from a Pakistani scientist who has admitted to selling nuclear secrets abroad, an exiled Iranian opposition group said on Wednesday.

Russia Developing New Nuclear Missile

MOSCOW (AP) - President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday that Russia is developing a new form of nuclear missile unlike those held by other countries, news agencies reported.

Speaking at a meeting of the Armed Forces' leadership, Putin reportedly said that Russia is researching and successfully testing new nuclear missile systems.

So sleep well, my darling, the sandman can linger,
We know our buddies won't give us the finger.
- Tom Lehrer (MLF Lullaby)

- rob 1:20 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Condi Rice is Angry!!

And all of the world is terrified as she will soon be the Secretary of State.

Proving that there is nothing more annoying to George then the opinions of people who don't agree with him 100% of the time... though it was a tough decision for a while there it looked like George was going to go with someone else....

Heavy Duty Rubber Backed Doormat Favored to Become Secretary Of State!

Unconfirmedsources report the Bush administration is considering two possible Powell replacements. The departure of Secretary Powel has given president George W. Bush the opportunity to interview new candidates more suited to his style of Faith Based foreign policy "leadership"'. An early favorite is a 19" x 29" heavy-duty rubber backed doormat with a flocked iris motif, but current national security adviser Condoleezza Rice is also under consideration.
...
Both have the ability to lie convincing and can do so regularly with out pause. Both have shown the ability to withstand bring repeatedly trodden upon by other high-ranking administration officials. Lastly both seem to have a great desire to lie at the Presidents feet regardless of their personal opinions.

- rob 1:17 PM - [PermaLink] -

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- rob 11:42 AM - [PermaLink] -

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In an effort to prove that idiots are not exclusive to any ideology, TCS presents Today's:

Right Wing Idiots: Texas schools scrap 'cross-dressing' day

A homecoming tradition in which boys dress like girls and vice versa in a tiny Texas school district won't be held Wednesday after a parent complained about what she regarded as the event's homosexual overtones.

and

Left Wing Idiots: Sympathy for the guppy: PETA campaign pitches fish as smart and sensitive

Touting tofu chowder and vegetarian sushi as alternatives, animal-rights activists have launched a novel campaign arguing that fish -- contrary to stereotype -- are intelligent, sensitive animals no more deserving of being eaten than a pet dog or cat.

Called the Fish Empathy Project, the campaign reflects a strategy shift by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals as it challenges a diet component widely viewed as nutritious and uncontroversial.

We could probably make this a regular segment... but we won't because we are too lazy.

- rob 11:41 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Bad proverbs:

Give a man some bread and he eats for a day
Teach him to farm and he eats for the rest of his life
Take from him the right to save seeds and he has to phone Monsanto for the rest of his life

or

Attack a nation under false pretences and get a few terrorists for a few years
Turn over a nation's agriculture to multinationals and get terrorists for generations

World Food Day: Iraqi farmers aren't celebrating

A new report [1] by GRAIN and Focus on the Global South has found that new legislation in Iraq has been carefully put in place by the US that prevents farmers from saving their seeds and effectively hands over the seed market to transnational corporations. This is a disastrous turn of events for Iraqi farmers, biodiversity and the country's food security. While political sovereignty remains an illusion, food sovereignty for the Iraqi people has been made near impossible by these new regulations.

"The US has been imposing patents on life around the world through trade deals. In this case, they invaded the country first, then imposed their patents. This is both immoral and unacceptable", said Shalini Bhutani, one of the report's authors.

The new law in question [2] heralds the entry into Iraqi law of patents on life forms - this first one affecting plants and seeds. This law fits in neatly into the US vision of Iraqi agriculture in the future - that of an industrial agricultural system dependent on large corporations providing inputs and seeds.

In 2002, FAO estimated that 97 percent of Iraqi farmers used saved seed from their own stocks from last year's harvest or purchased from local markets. When the new law - on plant variety protection (PVP) - is put into effect, seed saving will be illegal and the market will only offer proprietary "PVP-protected" planting material "invented" by transnational agribusiness corporations. The new law totally ignores all the contributions Iraqi farmers have made to development of important crops like wheat, barley, date and pulses. Its consequences are the loss of farmers' freedoms and a grave threat to food sovereignty in Iraq. In this way, the US has declared a new war against the Iraqi farmer.

- rob 6:01 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Standard Ohio Headline?

Some ballots counted twice

"Clyde had 131 percent voting," Tuckerman said. "That's not possible. I knew there was something amiss."

It isn't really even related to the Presidential race, but it just another example that if we are willing to spend 200 billion plus to supposedly bring democracy to Iraq, couldn't we at least spend some money here protecting our democracy?

Meahnwhile, BlackBoxVoting.org is in Florida trying to initiate hand recounts in some counties.

And for some reason the Moonie's over at the Washington Times decided to jump in with real old news about how bad Diebold machines are: Major bugs found in Diebold vote systems

Computer Science Professor Avi Rubin of John Hopkins University analyzed Diebold's 47,609 lines of code and found it uses an encryption key that was hacked in 1997 and no longer is used in secure programs.
...
Rubin, his graduate students and a colleague from Rice University found other bugs, that the administrator's PIN code was "1111" and that one programmer had inserted, "This is just a hack for now."

The implication is that by hacking one machine you could have access to all Diebold machines.

- rob 5:18 PM - [PermaLink] -

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(thanks to uggabugga)



Albert Gonzales... just what America needs as its top law officer... a man who advises clients to break laws.

Orders to Torture

In a January 25, 2002, memo, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales advised the President of "the threat of domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act," a federal statute. He advised Bush to invent a legal technicality--declaring detainees in the "war on terror" to be outside the Geneva Conventions--which, he said, "substantially reduces" the chance of prosecution. Gonzales went further, telling the President that the war on terrorism "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners"; he pooh-poohed concerns that abandoning the Geneva standards might endanger US troops.

Let's be clear about what this means: Gonzales was urging--and the President adopted as policy--an end run around federal laws. The War Crimes Act, passed by Congress in 1996, allows criminal prosecution of Americans for actions that violate the rights granted prisoners and civilians by the Geneva Conventions and for "outrages upon personal dignity." It is backed by the full range of federal penalties, up to and including the death penalty. And all treaties, including the Geneva Conventions and the Torture Convention, are likewise the binding law of the land.

From the Gonzales memo, it is clear that the Administration always envisioned taking coercive interrogation beyond Afghanistan. Gonzales repeatedly refers to the broader "war on terrorism"--the phrase Bush uses to cover the war on Iraq. Gonzales specifically advises the President to hold open "options for future conflicts." Thus the scandal is not what George W. Bush referred to as the "failures of character" of a few soldiers at Abu Ghraib. The scandal is that the White House wanted to torture prisoners and get away with it.

And so many votes for Bush were because he was the moral candidate?

With Rice's new job, and Gonzales's new job, and whatever scary folks they find for the other cabinet positions we are left with nothing but the words of Get Your War On:

- rob 4:57 PM - [PermaLink] -

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"Election Fraud" Roundup

• An Interesting piece on Zogby: I Smell a Rat

  By 3 AM, conversation had died and we were grimly sipping beers and watching as those two key states seemed to be slipping further and further to crimson. Suddenly, a friend who had left two hours earlier rushed in and handed us a printout.
  
  "Zogby's calling it for Kerry." He smacked the sheet decisively. "Definitely. He's got both Florida and Ohio in the Kerry column. Kerry only needs one." Satisfied, we went to bed, confident we would wake with the world a better place. Victory was at hand.
  
  The morning told a different story, of course. No Florida victory for Kerry--Bush had a decisive margin of nearly 400,000 votes. Ohio was not even close enough for Kerry to demand that all the votes be counted. The pollsters had been dead wrong, Bush had four more years and a powerful mandate. Onward Christian soldiers--next stop, Tehran.
  
  Lies, damn lies, and statistics
  
  I work with statistics and polling data every day. Something rubbed me the wrong way. I checked the exit polls for Florida--all wrong. CNN's results indicated a Kerry win: turnout matched voter registration, and independents had broken 59% to 41% for Kerry.
  ...
  In the second scenario I assumed that Bush had actually got 100% of the vote from Republicans and 50% from independents (versus CNN polling results which were 93% and 41% respectively). If this gave enough votes for Bush to explain the county's results, I left the amount of Democratic registered voters ballots cast for Bush as they were predicted by CNN (14% voted for Bush). If this did not explain the result, I calculated how many Democrats would have to vote for Bush.
  
  In 41 of 52 counties, this did not explain the result and Bush must have gotten more than CNN's predicted 14% of Democratic ballots--not an unreasonable assumption by itself. However, in 21 counties more than 50% of Democratic votes would have to have defected to Bush to account for the county result--in four counties, at least 70% would have been required. These results are absurdly unlikely.

• If you hope that simply counting the provisional ballots will be enough to some how change Ohio from red to blue, then I'm sad to say you will be disappointed: Chairman vows to meet count deadline

  Of the 1,548 investigated so far, fewer than half - 709 - were considered to be valid.
  
  Of those found to be disqualified, 494 were cast by people not registered to vote; 218 were cast in the wrong precinct; 57 did not include a required statement by the voter affirming that they are qualified to vote, and 29 were found to contain signatures different from the signature the voter had on file, said Ms. Hicks-Hudson. She added that 41 provisional ballot envelopes were deemed to be empty.

  Forgetting the fact that I would certainly have my vote discounted because my signature differs dramatically based on caffeine intake, I find the statement "deemed to be empty" a little... odd.
  
  
• Olbermann is on vacation but is still occasionally blogging about the issue: from a SECURE UNDISCLOSED LOCATION

  On Friday, David Shuster, who has already done some excellent research at Hardblogger, did a piece on the mess for Hardball, and Chris followed up with a discussion with Joe Trippi and Susan Molinari. There was a cogent, reasoned, unexcited piece about the mechanics of possible tampering and/or machine failure on CNN's "Next" yesterday, and Saturday alone there were serious news pieces in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Los Angeles Times, Salt Lake Tribune, and Seattle Post-Intelligencer. NPR did a segment of its "On The Media" on the topic (with said blogger as the guest).
  
  And today the New York Times continues its series of "Making Vote Counts" editorials with a pretty solid stance on the necessity of journalistic and governmental proof that the elections weren't tampered with, nor the victims of Speak & Spell toys retro-fitted as electronic voting units. By way of contrast, though, the Houston Chronicle has an editorial so puerile that it may be the most naïve thing I?ve ever read that was actually written by a grown-up.
  
  I suspect the coverage is going to go through the roof as the news spreads that Nader has gotten his recount in New Hampshire, and that the Greens and Libertarians are actually going to get their Ohio recount.
  ...
  Oh and by the way: how come the "Kerry's winning" part of the election night exit polling is presumed to have been wrong, or tampered with, but the "Moral Values" part of the same polling is graded flawless, and marks the dawn of a new American century?

  Thank you! So the exit polls were wrong but the same people saying that (in effort to protect a Bush Presidency) are happily noting that those polls proved that Kerry lost because he doesn't hate gays.
  
  
• Again I think the big story here that will really alert people to fraud (if it occurred) is what is happening in New Jersey: Nader gets recount in New Hampshire

  Washington, DC, Nov. 12 (UPI) -- Former independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader will get his vote recount in 11 counties in New Hampshire, the Nader campaign said Friday.
  
  After submitting their initial written request Nov. 5, the campaign was able to raise the $2,000 needed to begin a vote recount, after receiving an extension from the New Hampshire attorney general. According to the campaign, certain precincts appeared "suspicious" with an unusual number of votes favoring President George W. Bush.

Look if all this proves without a doubt there was no fraud then that is wonderful. Sure I want Kerry to win, but I would rather live in the real world and know two things:

1. Bush won legitimately and I (and others) need to deal with that reality and work on how to get our believes and ideals attention in this reality.
2. That though I don't like the results I will be so happy to know that America still is a democracy and that votes still count. I'd rather have (in my opinion) stupid votes counted then have stupid votes made up by some crony somewhere.

- rob 3:06 PM - [PermaLink] -

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YIKES!!!!!!

Okay, personally I do think that part of the constitution that says only a "natural born Citizen" can run for the office of the President is a bit dated. What about "C" section kids... is that considered unnatural birth? And with the current "moral" obsession these days, are we going to start defining the naturalness of conception when discussing a natural birth? "No person except Citizens born of a missionary position breeding activity shall hold the Office of President."

Seriously, we say America is the melting pot, so why shouldn't anyone who is allowed to vote be allowed to be President.

Looking at the last 4 years a nineteen year old President couldn't be worse.

But alas, it takes this for people to consider changing the constituion:

Amend for Arnold

- rob 2:13 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Proving the Republican Party is beyond mockery

For filth (I'm glad to say) is in
the mind of the beholder.
When correctly viewed,
Everything is lewd.
(I could tell you things about Peter Pan,
And the Wizard of Oz, there's a dirty old man!)
-Tom Lehrer

Hostettler mounting campaign to change the name of Interstate 69

John Hostettler, the Congressman representing the 8th district of Indiana, has been convinced by local religious groups to introduce legislation in the House that would change the name of an Interstate 69 extension to a more moral sounding number.

Now we all miss the famous Route 66... perhaps we could change the name of Interstate 69 to Interstate 666... what do you thing Hostettler?

- rob 1:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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CIA plans to purge its agency
Sources say White House has ordered new chief to eliminate officers who were disloyal to Bush

WASHINGTON -- The White House has ordered the new CIA director, Porter Goss, to purge the agency of officers believed to have been disloyal to President George W. Bush or of leaking damaging information to the media about the conduct of the Iraq war and the hunt for Osama bin Laden, according to knowledgeable sources.

Purging of citizens not scheduled until late 2005, to give people time to get their affairs in order.

- rob 12:55 PM - [PermaLink] -

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