Diebold Backdoor

Via Fark of all places, Diebold vote-counting software allows the user to change the vote count using a secret code. Needless to say, this is HUGE, and this is the only intentional vote-fraud enabling mechanism we know about.

Desperate Smears

So yeah. Care to take a guess as to what the latest Republican smear on John Kerry is?

He's had cancer, and it might come back. Under the link are a couple of letters to the editors that detail an interesting smear against Kerry.

From the first letter:

Kerry is seeking the presidency. Is that a responsible undertaking for anyone who could well be faced with a recurrence of cancer? Is Kerry truly confident that Sen. John Edwards, a first-term senator, is ready and qualified to replace him should that happen a year or so into a President Kerry's first term in office?

Before too long, Kerry should be asked the following question during a prime-time TV appearance: "In this time when the United States faces an extended war against terror, is the nation best served by a president who has not so long ago been a victim of cancer?"

You know, knowing survivors of cancers, I don't think *any* of them would call themselves victims. I thought Republicans were against that whole 'culture of victims' thing. Maybe I'm wrong.

And from the second letter:

A representative of the Bush campaign called recently, asking if she could count on me to vote for him in November. I am a registered independent voter.

After a short, respectful discussion, she asked if I knew that Kerry had had cancer. She added that a patient is not truly a "cancer survivor" until one is cancer-free for five years.

The message was clear: I should not vote for Kerry for fear that he will have a recurrence while in office. A February 2003 Reuters article noted that after surgery to remove his prostate, Kerry's doctor gave him a 95 percent chance of being cancer-free in 10 years.

Cancer isn't the death sentence it was a while back. Even my mother, who has fallen out of remission and had to have a bone marrow transplant, is given good odds that this'll lick it, and she'll be able to see her grandkids. Hell, Lance Armstrong had cancer, and he's gone on to win how many Tour de Frances since then?

And prostate cancer, if caught early, is one of the best cancers to get. It's relatively easy to fix. The list of men who have had the disease includes that darling of the Republicans, Rudy Giluiani.

In terms of concern, I think Kerry is less to worry about that Vice President Cheney, who has had heart attacks while in office.

This smear is just disgusting. Period.

Thanks to Steve Gilliard for the heads-up, and to NFZ's own Fourth Man for pointing me at Steve's blog in the first place.

Quickies And Milk

First, some commentary:

- Earlier, I'd agreed with Zib that it was a good thing for Sistani to get Sadr's men out of Najaf. Now I'm having second thoughts, piqued by Sadr's demand that his people leave in a crowd of visitors so they can't be tracked. Before, Sadr and a significant number of his people were concentrated in one area. Now these people can be all over the country, ready to rally in many areas if Sadr decides to flare up the violence again. On the other hand, going in and finishing the job might have created as many militant recruits as the cease-fire deal left militant survivors, so there are costs and benefits to either approach.

- It's time for yet another disparaging word on the Swift Boat Vets, who deserve all the disparagement they can get. Listen to the grounp long enough and they always circle back to two things: denying that atrocities were committed by US forces in Vietnam, and condemning Kerry for speaking out against such atrocities. This is exacltly how their leader John O'Neill got his start while on Nixon's payroll: denying that anything bad happened in Vietnam while assuring the public that the My Lai allegations were not symptomatic of anything worse, and accusing Kerry of smearing all US soldiers by attacking their leadership and training.

For the Swift Boat Vets to be upset at Kerry for his post-war statements, I've come to conclude that they are either people who committed atrocities and cannot come to terms with the reality of their own actions, or people who did not commit any atrocities and did not know anybody who committed any in their area, and extrapolated from this that nobody in the entire country committed atrocities. In short, they're either shamefully ignorant of the war in which they fought or they're Swift Boat Nuts.

Sidenote: Sean Hannity is among those who have insinuated that there were no atrocities in Vietnam (scroll to "VERY FRANKS DISCUSSION"). On the other hand, Andrew Grygus of aaxnet.com (the Microsoft-disliking computer business analyst) knows some people who know better.

Now on to the links...

- Hell, I haven't slammed the Swifties enough. Read this Colombia Journalism Review article, or at least this key quote:

Why was the press complicit in keeping afloat a story so easily debunked?

- Sudan has charged several soldiers with espionage, a capital offense, for refusing to attack civilians in Darfur, and might already have executed them before the trial is over. I'm a bit of an isolationist and I know my country's military is stretched, but it's past due time for a regime change here.

- The Department of Defense has a Freedom of Information Act training video called "The Public's Right To Know". Someone made a FOIA request for the video. What they got back from the DoD had parts cut out of it.

In another example of the Bush Adminsitration's openness and honesty, The Justice Department censored the words of the United States Supreme Court's 1972 decision U.S. vs. U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, in which the Justices said:

- A Dyncorp mercenary firm building was bombed in Afghanistan, killing seven. Dyncorp provides security for President Hamid Karzai.

- Remember the US soldiers who threw a pair of Iraqi prisoners off a bridge over the Tigris? They were ordered to lie about it.

- The US Navy is getting rid of its last F-14 Tomcats in the West Pacific theatre, and looking to retire the plane altogether, apparently without any replacement for its air superiority / anti-bomber role. Instead, the F-14s are being replaced by multipurpose F/A-18s which are designed for the ground attack missions that US aircraft have more recently been used for.

- In other Navy news, in one of the most unfair matchups of all time, a small wooden boat crashed into the aircraft carrier USS Kennedy. No survivors from the boat, unfortunately, and the Kennedy's captain has been sacked for letting it happen given what took place when the last time a small boat got near a US warship in the Middle East.

- Venezuela recalled its ambassador to Panama after Panama claimed that four people accused of planning to assassinate Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, including a terrorist convicted in Venezuela of trying to bomb a Cuban airliner, would be executed if extradited to Venezuela

- Andrew Gilligan is upset that "there just haven't been any high-profile, ground-breaking investigations of the Government" and calls Lord Hutton a "Guantanamo judge"

- In all the talk about the USA Mens' Basketball team's troubles, have you heard that the Womens' team went undefeated? They not only won, they dominated, averaging an 84-60 score over their run and beating everyone by more than ten points except for Russia, which put up a strong defense in a 66-62 semifinals loss. As for the Men, they got their act together by beating Spain and Lithuania which had gone undefeated in the preliminaries, knocking both favourites out of medal contention and taking the Bronze. I'd be grumbling if I was Spanish right now, with a 6-1 team that came in 7th place while the medal winners are 6-2, 5-3, and 5-3, but that's the way tournaments work.

- The Olympics ended on a sour note, as some jackass interfered with the Marathon, grabbing Brazilian Vanderlei de Lima when he had a 40-second lead. de Lima ended up with the Bronze.

- Quicker Quickies: Kos insults Bush's intelligence, Kevin Drum corrects Jonah Goldberg on the relative nastiness of Clinton-haters and Bush-haters, and Arianna Huffington reminds us that "anyone who is backing George Bush in the 2004 election is, by definition, not a moderate"

- A Canadian magazine survey finds only 15% of Canadians would vote for Bush. This is in the context of Canada having a strong and rising Conservative Party.

- error said this, here edited for neatness:

I would rather have a President that can and has changed his mind than a President that refuses to even use his mind, let alone change it.

- Garrison Keillor, whose Lake Wobegon radio spots define small-town American values, hammers the entire Republican Party as "a gang of pirates" and declares a vote for Kerry necessary for the future of America

- A 16-year old girl in Iran was arrested, apparently for having sex outside of marriage, and executed for mouthing off to the judge during her trial. This isn't being widely reported and Amnesty is the only one I se e claiming the girl was "mentally ill". More information from the Free Iran Project.

- A company is selling toys depicting the Sep11 attacks in bags of childrens' candy. I don't have a problem with Subway's Germany Super Size Me promotion or Starbucks's Collapse Into Cool ad, but this is clearly over the line.

- Going from the realm of children to that of adults, Rupert Murdoch (FOX)'s Sun Magazine is popular for its pictures of topless women on Page 3. Recently, The Sun has added political quotes from the girls, many of which echo right-wing propaganda.

-For some amusement:

• This post and the comments on it are hilarious
• Missionary Dating To Save People From Hell
• An independent Phil Collins music video on Newgrounds. Sound required. Direct link to file.
• A fun game that's like a cross between Gauntlet, Smash TV, and Doom. Direct link to file.

A bit of good news

Via CNN, by proxy from a few other sources:

(AP) -- The chilling sights and sounds of war fill newspapers and television screens worldwide, but war itself is in decline, peace researchers report.

In fact, the number killed in battle has fallen to its lowest point in the post-World War II period, dipping below 20,000 a year by one measure. Peacemaking missions, meantime, are growing in number.

I'm going to want to get my hands on the full report when I get the opportunity to pore through it. Parts of the methodology they use raise eyebrows - for instance, SIPRI's report doesn't seem to count things like runaway Rwandas as far as war-related casualties go.

On the other hand, some of the numbers generally do show some promise, and the trend that I've seen anyway seems to imply that the number of world conflicts has declined lately. The wars that make the headlines - these days, Iraq, Afghanistan, Darfur and Chechnya - are far from the only ones out there, with dozens of others quietly hammering along in the background. Despite the fact that those main ones are still occupying our attentions from where we sit now, it does seem like the ones we don't hear about every day have been declining in number and intensity.

I'm kind of stunned at the implication that war-related deaths in that sense has reached its lowest level since the end of the Second World War determined by some UBC researchers; I would have figured things would have been hovering around the level of the post-Cold War flareup. So far, I do flatly disagree with the idea that the end of the Cold War gave the UN a freer hand in world affairs, but I suppose we'll have to wait for the report to be properly published, won't we?

Whatever it says, this thing is going on my reading list when it becomes available.

As for whatever I'm gonna write next, it looks like Francis Fukuyama's opened his mouth and emitted words arranged to form sentences and even paragraphs again. As I can't leave that charming little Luddite well enough alone, I'll probably have my two cents on him when I next write something here.

DoD-Italy Backchannel

This might be the ground-shaking story that Josh Marshall was hinting about a few months ago. Apparently, there were secret, unauthorized backroom meetings between the Department of Defense, Italian intelligence, and notorious Iran-Contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar who is so untrustworthy the CIA has issued an order forbidding their people from talking to him. The players include Ghorbanifar and:

• DoD Iran expert Larry Franklin, who serves under Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith and is the target of the FBI investigation I brushed off as uninteresting yesterday.
• DoD Middle East expert Harold Rhode, another Feith employee
• American Enterprise Institute figure Michael Ledeen, also a writer for National Review magazine
• Italian SISMI intelligence agency director Nicolo Pollari
• Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino
• An unspecified number of Arabs and Persians to be named later

Ledeen apparently organized the first of the meetings, held in Rome in December 2001. The presence of Italy's equivalents to Rumsfeld and Tenet means that this was a big meeting. Neither the CIA nor State Department were informed. Appropriately pissed off, both get Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley to order Feith to put a stop to the meetings, but they continued, apparently including open discussion of the US's plans to invade and occupy Iraq.

The other piece of big news: "under terms of a compromise agreed to by both parties, a full investigation into the matter was put off until after the November election". In other words, the Republicans forced the Democrats into accepting a cover-up. This story raises numerous open questions about the Iraq intelligence scandal, what went through this back-channel, what was Israel's involvement, whether this connects to the Chalabi or Niger yellowcake scandals, and just what we haven't been told yet.

Edit 7:00PM: Juan Cole has an analysis and there's already a Wikipedia entry for Larry Franklin

Which Party Is God's Party?

This morning, radio talk show host Bernie Ward was debating whether the Republicans could honestly consider themselves to be the party God would vote for, at the exclusion of the Democratic Party. This shouldn't be too hard to figure out -- how well do the parties follow God's party platform? Let's have a look.

1: I am the Lord thy God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the the house of bondage.

Both parties support the Knights of Columbus version of the Pledge of Allegiance, proclaiming God to rule over the United States, and the continued existence of God's title on U.S. currency. As far as bondage goes, it was the Republicans who brought blacks out of slavery in the 1860s and the Democrats who fought for black slavery at the time, but the parties changed positions on black issues from the cultural shocks of Truman's pledge for equal rights for blacks, Johnson's passing of the Civil Rights act, and Nixon's Southern Strategy. Neither party has any unique foreign-policy position on Egypt. Advantage: NEUTRAL

2: Thou shalt have no other Gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.

The Democrats accept Buddhists, Wiccans, Atheists, and all manners of non-Judaic religions into their ranks, while Bush is on record saying that Wicca, Shinto, and Santeria are not real religions, and his father said that Atheists should have their citizenship revoked. On the other hand, the Republicans' worship of the flag and Ronald Reagan looks like a violation of the latter part of this Commandment, but that doesn't outweigh the Democrats' violation of the more basic part. Advantage: REPUBLICANS

3: Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Bush claims that God speaks to him, that God appointed him President, and that God told him to invade Iraq. The Democrats don't say anything of the sort. The answer is clear. Advantage: DEMOCRATS

4: Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days shalt thou labour and do all thy work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord thy God. In it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates.

While nobody is trying to expand the work week from its current five to a full seven days, the Republicans are pushing for more business-friendly regulations to cut overtime pay and vacation hours, while the Democrats are more likely to push for regulations allowing people to work fewer hours and have more time to relax. Still, no one is actively trying to take away workers' ability to have at least one day off a week. Advantage: NEUTRAL

5: Honour thy father and thy mother, that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee.

It's hard to say that any party dishonours its forebears, so they're both doing fairly good at this one. Advantage: NEUTRAL.

6: Thou shalt not murder.

The Democrats are the more pacifist party and many of them are against the death penalty. The Republicans gave us Iraq and the Contras. Advantage: DEMOCRATS

7: Thou shalt not commit adultery.

"I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Miss Lewinsky." Of course, a dozen or so Republican Congressmen were outed as adulterers too, but that's a big one and there's JFK on top of that. Advantage: REPUBLICANS

8: Thou shalt not steal.

The Reagan and Bush administrations cut regulations designed to allow investigators to track business fraud and embezzlement. Now corporations are embezzling millions of dollars from the Iraq reconstruction funds, and they'll funnel part of the money right back into the Republican Party so the Republicans won't want to put a stop to it or it would hurt them. Advantage: DEMOCRATS

9: Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Richard Nixon's smear campaigns, Ronald Reagan's nonexistent Cadillac Welfare Queens, the Whitewater investigation, the Bush campaign claiming that Al Gore didn't take the initiative in creating the Internet through his service in Congress, the Bush campaign claiming Al Gore wasn't a model for the character in Love Story, the Bush campaign claiming that John McCain committed treason and gave state secrets to North Vietnam while he was a POW, the Bush campaign claiming that John McCain fathered an illegitimate black baby out of wedlock, the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Ann Coulter, and Sean Hannity all tilt this one heavily in favour of the Democratic Party. Advantage: DEMOCRATS

10: Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

Both parties are full of greedy politicians coveting either others' power and greedy businesses coveting each others' property. There are really no good guys here. Advantage: NEUTRAL

In a final tally the Democrats win 4-2-4, but the Republicans have Charlton Heston, so let's give them an extra point for that. That makes it 4-3-4, which is really too close to call. In fact, Neutral is tied for the lead. This means that neither party is overwhelmingly the Party of God. If neither party is the party that that God would overwhelmingly support, what is a faithful, God-fearing voter to do?

LEARN WHAT THE CANDIDATES STAND FOR AND DECIDE FOR YOURSELF, DUMMY!

http://www.georgewbush.com/
http://www.johnkerry.com/

Making Dick Cheney Appear Likeable

A certain few of us might be interested in Tim Eagan's Deep Cover this week...

(used without permission)

Yes, it's a blatant Corollary Politic violation, but this is a political site, not a Jihad site, and it made me giggle.

Israeli Spy Shocker!

The FBI is alleging that Israel has spies in the US government and that AIPAC is connected to the Israeli government! Am I the only person whose reaction was "No shit"?

As the details come out, this might actually be a big(ger) deal given the allegations of what the spy could have done in his position. If there was Israeli subterfuge pushing the US into war with Iraq in addition to the Iranian subterfuge, that changes things significantly. Most importantly, that would validate all of the antisemites and Israel-haters who said that the US was invading Iraq on Israel's bidding, including the ones trying to blow us up. The repercussions of that could make the fight against terrorist groups quite a bit more difficult.

Republicans: The Party Of Exclusion

Via Kos, Republicans for Choice and the Log Cabin Republicans tried to get some ameliorating language inserted into the Republican Party platform:

We recognize that the Republicans of good faith may not agree with all the planks in the party’s platform. This is particularly the case with regard to those planks dealing with abortion, family planning, and gay and lesbian issues. The Republican Party welcomes all people on all sides of these complex issues and encourages their active participation as we work together on those issues on which we agree.

Of course, the Party refused. At the same time, the Republican Convention's headline speakers will mostly be such people who the Party will not officially welcome into their Party. The Republican Party is engaged in a massive deception of the American people about who the Party is and what the Party actually stands for.

Edit 4:40PM: Look what I found in the Republican Party's 2000 Platform:

We are the party of the open door, determined to strengthen the social, cultural, and political ties that bind us together and make our country the greatest force for good in the world. Steadfast in our commitment to our ideals, we recognize that members of our party can have deeply held and sometimes differing views. This diversity is a source of strength, not a sign of weakness, and so we welcome into our ranks all who may hold differing positions. We commit to resolve our differences with civility, trust, and mutual respect.

The Swift Vets and CNN, tools of the Republican Party

Josh Marshall notes CNN's Daryn Kagan saying talking about "the medals he [Kerry] might have won" in Vietnam, and Miles O'Brien saying that Kerry pulling Rassman out of the water is "a point of dispute, given what has all transpired here with the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth". These are newsanchors reading the prepared statements that the company tells them to say, so Fox's excuse that their people are just opinionists doesn't work for CNN.

The power of personality

I'm back. Didja miss me? You did! Alas, your aim needs work. Something of a ten-minute job for the evening, talking about news out of Iraq today:

Against all odds, Sistani went and did it yesterday, brokering a peace deal in Najaf which seems to have brought a surprisingly abrupt end to several weeks of fighting, and possibly concluded at least part of the guerilla war Moqtada al-Sadr has been waging for a little over a year now. As I write this, the troops of the Mahdi Army in Najaf are starting to disarm, disturbingly on schedule.

Sistani is enormously respected by much of the Iraqi population. This is clear by his abilities to broker peace agreements with seemingly little more than a raised eyebrow in the past, but we've just seen another example of it today. Shortly after major medical procedures, the man travels through a far-from-stable Iraq overland from Kuwait, meets with Sadr for a couple of hours, and suddenly things are coming to a screeching, blissful halt. The agreement seems to be mindboggling in and of itself - it's almost a win-win situation for both parties, in which the leaders and combatants on all sides come out alive, with most of their demands met, and little if any stains on their honor. I wasn't sure that was a dream, much less something that could actually happen.

Considering that Sistani and Sadr are both in possession of rather powerful personalities, I'm kind of surprised an agreement was reached that didn't involve one of them offing the other. William provided the mental image of the two closing in a blur of Qu'ran quotes and Hadiths far too rapid-fire for any mundane observer to understand, followed by one of the two backing down, and one is left with the impression that that was almost exactly what happened.

I really wish I could've been a fly on the wall to hear what happened.

It's an interesting set of contrasts, anyway, in a few odd ways. When the thirty-year-old leader meets the eighty-year-old leader, one expects the younger to be the reformist and the latter the theocrat, for instance, but we're seeing the exact opposite here. Pretty much every cliche out there says that these guys should be occupying each others' bodies, but fortunately, the world sometimes chooses not to run on cliches.

On top of it, it's a situation in which I don't exactly want one side to just Defeat the other here. I find myself admiring Sistani's perspective and being in awe of the level of influence he wields. At the same time, Sadr, while basically being The Enemy in most of the world's eyes, still pretty much commands the respect of an intelligent, charismatic and competent enemy. I don't want him running the whole show, but with a bit of moderation I don't think I'd mind seeing Sadr continuing to have a role in politics. And, as I said, Sistani just seems to kick ass.

I'm not sure how well this is going to hold up, if it holds up, so I can't really make any predictions. I hope the settlement holds, though, as Iraq both deserves and needs some good news. It should be worth watching, anyway.

In another topic, the idea seems to be growing that the twin airliner crashes in Russia just might have not been terrorism, which makes my inner statistician cringe in dismay. On the one hand, the conclusion I jumped to was (and is still) a reasonable one; on the other hand, I'd very much like to be proven wrong on this one. I have my doubts that it's something other than sabotage. It's stunning that a day's luck could be that bad, though; whatever the cause was, something weird is going on in Russia.

The Rohnert Park Casino

First, a sidenote: I hoped to post a table of the candidates' positions for this and the upcoming November election, but only one of the candidates responded to the questionairre I sent out three weeks ago, so here's a backstory on the situation instead:

Gambling is big in California, even if most of the activity is actually done in Nevada. There are advertisements for the Reno casinos on the eastbound highways as far west as Sonoma. Inside California, the state lottery sends only a pittance of its proceeds to education so that the state can advertise bigger and more exciting jackpots. Even though gambling is supposed to illegal in California, it is a very popular pastime.

Rohnert Park was founded in the 1950s as an idealistic family-friendly suburb, taking as its motto "The Friendly City". The city is speckled with an unusually large number of parks, and many large residential districts were designed to have only a few entry points to keep crime low. This is a city that has grown on immigration of families and its reputation as a peaceful community.

Though you can't tell from a political map of the world, Native American reservations are supposed to be sovereign territories. In the past few decades, Native advocates have proposed that this pseudosovereignty should allow Natives to build profitable casinos on their land in California, since they should not be restricted by California's laws against gambling. The argument often carried the side promise that casino profits would be distributed among the tribe and improve the generally impoverished Natives' state of life. A few years ago, a voter referendum was passed explicitly permitting casino construction on Native land.

Fast forward to the past few years. Rohnert Park finds itself in a few million dollars of debt, and a newly elected City Council majority fires long-time City Manager Joe Netter and nearly all department chairs. About the same time, the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria are making plans to build a casino at Sears Point on the north side of San Francisco Bay a few miles east of Novato. That's the same Sears Point as where the racetrack is, for you NASCAR fans.

Most Native casinos in California have been built on out-of-the-way reservations, but Sears Point is not much more than a dozen miles out from several good-sized towns. There were also said to be environmental issues with the land the casino was slated to be built on, but every NIMBY cites the environment. In any case, the Sears Point casino plan was met with widespread political disapproval. Local city county leaders pushed their representatives in DC to lean on Sacramento to put a stop to the plan. After a while, Rohnert Park City Councilman Jake MacKenzie says that if they want to build a casino so close to so many cities, why not build it in Rohnert Park?

MacKenzie now says he was joking, but within weeks of his suggestion, the Federated Indians dropped the Sears Point plan and their financial backers, Station Casinos of Las Vegas, gave them money to buy a large farm on the city's western border, incidentally on part of the environmentally sensitive Laguna de Santa Rosa. The new casino plan touched off a storm of criticism in town, and the storm grew as the Federated Indians gave more and more money to the City to sweeten the deal. It began as a promise to give the city $10 million per year for 20 years for being gracious enough to welcome the new neighbour. Then came donations to the City's police and fire services, a $1.5 million endowment to Sonoma State University on the southeast edge of town, and a few hundred thousand dollars to various local charities and philanthropic institutions. People shouted "Bribery!", and there were allegations flying about that the casino was being built for the La Cosa Nostra tribe.

The City Council maintained that, due to the Natives' sovereignty, the casino would be built no matter what they do, so they might as well accept any kind of generousity offered. Casino opponents didn't like that roll-over attitude one bit, and considering the City Council's actions a form of dereliction of duty, set forth looking for legal ways to remove the City Council members who most strongly supported the casino, the sooner the better.

And so we come to the recall campaign. Casino supporters out-fund-raised casino opponents by $120,000 to $30,000, and that was before receiving several five-digit checks in the last few weeks of the campaign from people with the local garbage collection business and from some Marin businessmen with no apparent connection to Rohnert Park. Giant "NO ON RECALL - IT'S TOO EXTREME" signs, including some flashing electronic ones like you might expect a road crew to have, went up all over the main roads leading into town and all the vacant plots of land that usually host signs for the most extreme right-wing Republican every election season. Some also went up just outside my polling place on election day morning in violation of campaigning laws, but they were gone by the evening. Smaller signs for various recall candidates sprouted on the lawns of residential neighbourhoods and were subsequently plucked from the lawns of one or two neighbourhoods. Recall supporters retaliated by covering up some of the anti-recall signs with their own signs. There was a van going around plugging Schwarzenegger's support for the casino, as Schwarzenegger has been a staunch supporter of Native casinos since getting into office. The local newspaper editorialized in favour of the recall after treating it with mild disdain in earlier stories.

Finally, this early election came and the incumbents succeeded in fighting off the recall on a 55-45% vote. The county reports that voter turnout was 52%, better than the US's average national turnout in recent Presidential elections. The casino's opponents had hoped the recall to show that the people of Rohnert Park wouldn't just roll over and let it be built, but this election result is a strong indicator that the people of Rohnert Park are willing to do just that despite the beliefs of a vocal minority. The most prominent casino opponents even ended up second in the question of who should replace the incumbents should the recall succeeed. The next battle over the casino will be fought in November, and there will likely be court cases afterwards.

Take the Republican Party Census Document Questionnaire

Greetings from RedStateVille. A while back, my dad finally registered to vote, and he couldn't remember what party my mom and I were, so he picked one at random. And got the wrong one. Since it was enough of a struggle to get him to register in the first place, we've never bothered to change the registration. And thus, sometimes we get documents like the one underneath the extended entry in the mail.

The letter enclosed with it is rather funny, with such choice gems as:

Make no mistake -- without your answers to the REPUBLICAN PARTY CENSUS DOCUMENT questions . . . . . . our leadership will not know how you and other Republicans at the grassroots level of our Party feel about the critical issues facing our nation.

(I comment: Not like you'd pay attention anyway...)

Our margins are razor-thin. The liberal voting bloc of the Democratic Party in the U.S. Senate can still stop almost any legislation that President Bush proposes. Real reform depends on maintaining our Republican majority in the House and the Senate, not just now, but over the next ten years.

(I comment: Whatever happened to a loyal opposition, eh? Or is it not enough to just have the majority? You make it sound like the Dems have control.)

we will repeat the 1998 elections when many Republican voters stayed home, and we lost five Republicans in Congress.

(I comment: Wow! Five whole Republicans lost their jobs! Oh no! We nearly lost congress! ...maybe if you hadn't drug us through an impeachement scandal...)

Democratic Party Chairman, Terry McAuliffe, has stated he will redouble his efforts this year not only to win complete control of Congress, but to take revenge on President Bush and take total control of our national government.

McAuliffe knows he can count on the support of some unions and every liberal special interest to raise tens of millions of dollars to elect Democrats at all levels of government. And to win Republican victories, the President needs the RNC's help.

(I comment: Ack! Mom, it's the liberal bogeyman! Save me! I mean, labor unions! How gross can you get!)

Liberal special interests and some unions will continue to hire hundreds of "professional activists" and put them in place in targeted congressional districts around the country

(I comment: Hey, William, how much are you getting paid to be a "professional activist"? The Republican Party wants to know!)

Working together with the radical environmentalists and ultra liberal groups like People for the American Way and The Feminist Majority, these organizers are putting together a broad coalition of liberal grassroots activists to identify and get out their voters. This is what worked for them in 1998 and 2000. And it's what they failed to do in 2002 so they are redoubling their efforts this year.

(I comment: No ACLU? I'm disappointed in you. And I love the fact that Dem activists forming a coalition causes the republicans to scream.)

Here are the questions. Pay close attention to the last:

Domestic and International Security

1. Do you support President Bush's initiatives to promote the safety and security of all Americans?
   
2. Do you support the use of air strikes against any country that offers safe harbor or aid to individuals or organizations committed to further attacks on America?
   
3. Do you continue to support increasing the amount of security at airports, train stations and all government buildings including monuments and museums?
   

1. Should the Inheritance or "Death Tax" be permanently repealed?
   
2. Do you support President Bush's pro-growth policies to create more jobs and improve the economy?
   
3. Should small businesses be encouraged to grow and hire more workers?
   

1. Do you support President Bush's plan to make our schools more accountable to parents and to restore local control of education?
   
2. Should students, teachers, principals and administrators be held to higher standards?
   
3. Do you agree that teaching our children to read and increasing literacy rates should be a national priority?
   

1. Do you support President Bush's initiative to allow private religious and charitable groups to do more to help those in need?
   
2. Do you support the law, passed by the Republican Congress and signed by President Bush, that bans partial birth abortion?
   
3. Do you support the President's efforts to save Social Security and add a prescription drug benefit to Medicare?
   

1. Do you think U.S. troops should have to serve under United Nations' commanders?
   
2. Do you support the President's plan to increase military spending to meet our defense needs?
   
3. Should we build President Reagan's SDI defense shield against nuclear missile attack?
   

1. Do you support the election of Republican candidates acrss the country and rebuilding of our majorities over the next ten years?
   
2. 1. Did you vote in the year 2000?
      
   2. Did you vote in the year 2002?
      
   3. Do you plan to vote in 2004?
   
   
3. Will you join the Republican National Committee by making a contribution today?
   
   • Yes, I support the RNC and am enclosing my most generous contribution of:
     
     
     • $500
       
     • $250
       
     • $100**
       
     • $50
       
     • $25
       
     • Other $_______
     
     **A gift in this amount pays to mail 250 more CENSUS DOCUMENTS to registered Republicans.
     
   • Yes, I support the RNC, but I am unable to participate at this time. However, I have enclosed $11 to cover the cost of tabulating this survey.
     
   • No, I favor electing liberal Democrats over the next ten years.

There's another question for RNC members only about where they get their political news. Of course, we know all y'all get it from faithfully reading the Zone. ;)

But yeah. We have to win this one. I don't want to know why the Republicans insist they need the Congress for ten more years, and I don't particularly want to find out.

Well, that ain't good

There's some decidedly Bad Stuff going on in Russia right now. Via CNN, the BBC, and hundreds of other news sources we're getting words of what seem to be a series of terrorist attacks - two hijackings or bombings, and a third bombing at a Moscow bus station - having occurred sometime in the past few hours. Of course this is just happening, so reports are jumbled, confused, and in places contradictory, but that's how disasters tend to be to begin with.

I'm not sure where this is going to go yet. My gut feeling says the Chechens have something to do with it; they've been getting bolder lately with some of the fighting in Chechnya proper, to the point of starting traditional military campaigns again at times. The previous times they got their stuff together in that sense, they've tried taking the fight to Russia proper, but not quite like this, aside from the apartment bombings.

Whatever ends up coming out of this, Putin's shown himself to have a hand more covered by a mailled gauntlet than a velvet glove. In the coming weeks it's probably going to be a bad time to be in Chechnya.

Two Americas

The key theme of Kerry running mate John Edwards's campaign has been that there are Two Americas: One America for hardworking normal people like you and me, and ZOMBIE DEAD AMERICA.

Or so it seems, as the Edwards campaign has seen fit to send its materials to my late grandfather, who permanently moved to Eagle Point a few years ago. Edwards can keep sending his advertisements if he likes, but if Grandpa votes for Kerry/Edwards, then I'm going to have a problem.

National Geographic Declares: Global Warming Is Real

National Geographic Magazine has planted its foot firmly on the environmentalist side of the global warming debate, declaring in a 74-page cover story:

There's no question that the Earth is getting hotter -- and fast. The real questions are: How much of the warming is our fault, and are we willing to slow down the meltdown by curbing our insatiable appetite for fossil fuels?

There is even an official apology from editor Bill Allen, who is "willing to bet that we'll get letters from readers who don't believe global climate change is real" and "Some readers will even terminate their memberships", but finally declares, "I can live with some canceled memberships. I'd have a harder time looking at myself in the mirror if I didn't bring you the biggest story in geography today."

Augh

"The Scream" was stolen from the Edvard Munch Museum in Oslo, Norway. Yes, that "The Scream". Also stolen was Munch's Madonna, which is NSFW.

If you demand politics, here's something political to "Augh" about: Tony Blair is getting a Congressional Gold Medal, the US's highest civilian honour, for invading Iraq with the US. Not one Senator opposed the award (78 cosponsored it, including Feinstein), and it passed the House on a voice vote with 290 House co-sponsors. This was passed last summer, but is in the news now because the Sunday Mirror claims Blair is refusing to visit the US to pick up the medal. The Mirror is also misreporting the award as the military Medal of Honour, so take the report of Blair's boycott with a grain of salt.

• "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War" (reviewed here) is being released to theatres as "Uncovered: the War on Iraq".
• Via error, Remembering Henry Wallace's warning about fascism
• You think your phone company is bad?
• Another liberal Congressman on the secret airline watchlist
• Iraq's soccer team doesn't like being used in Bush's ads
• US now referring to Iraqi nationalist militia as "Anti-Iraq Force".
• The first word to my mind is "Mengele"

Seen in today's deadtree was a copy of a New Republic article beginning "Imagine what conservatives would be saying if John Kerry did the things President Bush has done this year in Falluja and Najaf", then going on to detail Bush's appeasement policies to keep Iraq out of the news and casualties low in the short term. It doesn't appear to be on the Web yet, but keep an eye out.

Yowza

I tend to be underwhelmed by most political ads. They're just so... bland. Nobody uses any humor, because nobody wants to be accused of being insulting, or mocking their opponent. So, you end up with two types of ads:

a) Look at me! Here's my family! Here's me walking! Don't I look optimistic! FEEL THE HOPE!

b) Look at my opponent. He did/said bad thing X. Isn't that naughty of him? How naughty. Bad opponent.

After a while, it just gets sorta repetitive.

But, every once in a while... you get something like this, and you say "... woah. That's how it should be done."

Just a devastating ad. Using McCain, perhaps the most well-liked politician in America today... allowing the parallel to the whole Swift Boat controversy without beating people over the head with it... and that last shot of Dubya just looking flabbergasted that McCain actually called him on it.

Yowza.

Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo has more commentary.

One More "Um, Duh?" Moment

That's the damnable thing about lies. It's not that you start believing them -- by the time you believe them, you're too far gone to care. It's that moment when the part of you that still believes in good faith and seeing the other guy's point of view exercises a reflex of old habit under the repeated pounding of blatant falsehoods and says to you, "Hey, maybe we're the ones missing something here?" And you have to expend the moment's effort to point at the obvious truth and say, "Um, duh?" and it blushes, embarassed, and says, "Well, yeah, I know. But I'm honor-bound to make a quick check every now and then."

So here's the question under consideration. Are the members of Swift Boat Veterans for Truth actually men of good conscience acting on their own recognizance to right the historical record because they are shocked that John Kerry would invent stories about action to earn medals, then invent stories about unheroic action by others just to, I don't know, get some of that fine hippie chick booty because those girls just love them that sexy anti-war activist? Or are they in fact amorally vicious liars at the beck and call of Bush, Rove & Co.?

Hint:

Mr. Bush's campaign confirmed an accusation by the Kerry campaign Saturday that one of the veterans who appears in the group's latest television advertisement - describing the pain he felt as a prisoner of war over Mr. Kerry's antiwar statements in the early 1970's - was a member [of] the campaign veteran's advisory committee.

So... someone shown in the ad was on a Bush campaign committee.

Um, duh?

This is the part where most NFZ posts would have a paragraph full of one-word links to the articles that show where these guys have been contradicting themselves on the facts, are married to the Bush campaign, in one case literally, produced similar ads about other potential Bush rivals like John McCain -- who is now the President's bestest buddy, at least until he cracks and calls Bush on being a halfwitted wussy (I laid $50 on "prime time at the Republican Convention on live TV," don't fail me John!) -- and made reference to similar ads accusing Max Cleland, a man who lost three limbs for his country, of being soft on defense... so this oughta do for a central resource on that.

Does Charles Krauthammer Even Believe What He Writes?

Last week, we saw Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer express his support for a notorious terrorist movement. This week, while a little less drastic in consideration of current events, Krauthammer drops another bombshell:

For 60 years, American troops in the tens of thousands have been sitting in Germany essentially where Eisenhower left them at the end of World War II. For 50 years, American troops in the tens of thousands have been sitting where Matthew Ridgway left them at the end of the Korean War. For three years, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been making plans to undo this colossal idiocy.

According to Krauthammer now, it was "collosal idiocy” to have U.S. troops standing against Soviet expansion in Europe and East Asia. A week ago, the same guy said it was a misjudgement to oppose deploying additional, longer range nuclear missles to Europe and another misjudement to make a tension-reducing pact with the Soviet Union to halt arms buildups. Perhaps someone could explain to me how this all, taken together, makes any kind of sense, but it looks from here like Krauthammer's losing it.

You Gotta Be Kidding Me.

Un-fscking-believable. Guess who found himself on the Homeland Security Dept. no-fly list recently?

Ted Kennedy.

Yes, that Ted Kennedy.

Read it and weep.

(Courtesy of Kevin Drum at Washington Monthly.)

The scariest thing isn't that the name "Edward Kennedy" ended up on the watchlist.

Or that names appear on the list 'by accident'.

It's that a Senator had to call up the head of Homeland Security three times to get it straightened out, and it still took "several weeks".

If it's that difficult for one of the most powerful politicians in America to get himself off the no-fly list after being put there by mistake... imagine how hard it is for an ordinary person.

Cripes.

EDIT: NY Times has picked up the story. As always, registration required. [Edit 8/20/04 by katster: Here's the permanent, no login required link.]

The gist:

The meeting had all the hallmarks of an ordinary Congressional hearing. There was Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, discussing the problems faced by ordinary citizens mistakenly placed on terrorist watch lists. Then, to the astonishment of the crowd attending a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Thursday, Mr. Kennedy offered himself up as Exhibit A.

Between March 1 and April 6, airline agents tried to block Mr. Kennedy from boarding airplanes on five occasions because his name resembled an alias used by a suspected terrorist who had been barred from flying on airlines in the United States, his aides and government officials said.

Read the whole thing. It's both sad and hilarious.

Living la vida Red State...

So, I've moved back to the town I've grown up in -- Redding, CA, at the very north end of the Great Central Valley of California. And despite California being a blue state, Redding and a lot of the other valley towns are very Red State. And this was best described in a radio commercial I heard on the way to school this afternoon.

Now, I don't mind advertising. I like a nice clever ad as much as the rest of them, and the guys at Coachmaster Collision and Repair tend to have some pretty funny ones. So when I heard the familiar strains of Classical Gas (which is the background music on all their commercials), I listened up.

Only to be given a political rant.

And this being Redding, home of the red state, the rant was about hyperbole and the Democratic National Convention. The inadvertantly funny line was "I hope there's not as much hyperbole at the Republican National Convention."

Not that I expect them to put an ad on the radio about if that turns out to be the case.

This has been your grumble from a Dem caught in Red State Land.

Ice Cream and Money

So I was relaxing outside a local bookstore after running some errands today, when to my astonishment who should walk by but His Excellency Ed Rendell, Governor of Pennsylvania. Got his autograph in the nearby Ben & Jerry's, adding to my collection of political John Hancocks: one from Ann Coulter on the particularly vile column that got her booted from our local newspaper(I think I pulled it off without making her aware I'm, well, not exactly a fan), and one from Gov. Bob Riley of Alabama on the copy of Governing (a civil-service trade magazine) that named him Public Employee of the Year last year for championing economic sensibility for his state in the form of tax increases, programs for Alabama's poorest, fiscal responsibility... did I mention that he's a Republican, and fought his own party for it, putting his career on the line? Wonderful tale of political courage. Poke around for the story, see how it turned out.

At any rate, Governor Rendell was giving an economic development conference around the corner at a theatre people have been trying to reopen, so I decided to attend. These things are great publicity, because there are practically no downsides once you have the money available to do it -- let's give people money! let's create jobs! let's build a community theatre! -- so of course everyone with any connection to the initiative will be there to claim a share of the credit. The concentrated schmooze factor before the show was astounding. I saw just about our entire elected state-government delegation there, as well as at least one candidate running for one of the offices represented and his campaign manager; the local activists who had organized the theatre fund, the president of the University (I'm in State College, the home of PSU, which was closely involved with two of the programs being funded), and plenty of other people. From the handshaking, you'd get the impression that every one of these people had known all the others from high school. Overall, I counted it a nice experience in applied politics.

And the string quartet a nice touch.

Hmm... no child left behind?

Cliche, I know. But it was spot-perfect wit from a friend of mine when I told him about this:

In California, the state's largest charter school operator has just announced the closing of at least 60 campuses, The Los Angeles Times reported on Monday, stranding 10,000 children just weeks before the start of the school year.

If there was any doubt that charter schools -- spurred by the profit motive, viewing children as consumers (or worse, product?) -- would be flightier than a legally-mandated public institution, this would seem to be a big example of the phenomenon. Companies are profit-making entities beholden to shareholders; money is the primary motive. Last I checked, teachers in the little red schoolhouse didn't get into the job because the industry was awash in cash. Which of these two entities is a priori more dedicated to your children, and which will need scrutiny just to keep it on the straight and narrow?

The point of the larger article is that kids in charter schools seem to be doing worse than kids in normal public schools. Charter school supporters retort that this is because charter schools have taken in the badly-performing students that public schools were poorly serving, rather than obtaining a pool of students who by definition had parents already involved in their child's education. The two aren't necessarily exclusive, just likely so.

What does NCLB have to do with this? It supports charter schools, of course, as well as vouchers for private schools, even religious ones, under the umbrella of "school choice", as if the competitive ethos that works for business would somehow drive teachers and principals, already some of the most dedicated and overworked professionals in our economy, to greater heights of output. Oversight of those schools, like the ones above, to ensure that they meet their commitments, seems to be lacking in the push, though traditional public schools are quickly enough labeled as failing and students urged to take the school's funding elsewhere.

So if kids in charter schools are falling behind, and you don't like what's happening at your local public school, and the rest of NCLB seems to be little more than labels and unfunded mandates, is there an alternative?

Well, a while back I promised a detailed look at John Kerry's plans and principles from his campaign's book, Our Plan for America. There's a real set of principles and ideas under all the accusations of flip-flopping and the fears of people who just want anybody but Bush. This seems like as good a time as any to look at the education section of that book.

Education is found in Chapter 3 of the book, under "Family." Like the rest of the book, proposals from other sections can touch here and vice versa, but we'll stick to this chapter. It follows the same layout as the other chapters, starting with the core principles involved, framing goals intended to realize those principles, and setting out specific initiatives intended to achieve those goals. Here's the bare-bones summary; you can use it to learn about the outline of Kerry's positions, or as a talking points ref sheet, or anything else you like.

Principles: A strong America begins with strong families. We can help empower parents to build strong families when they take the responsibility to seize the opportunity to build a better life. Education is the key to that opportunity.

Goals: Every child comes to school ready to learn. Students held to high standards, schools with the resources and responsibility to meet those standards. Enough good teachers to ensure that every student gets helpful personal attention. Anyone can earn graduation. Diplomas are meaningful. Qualified applicants can always afford college. Adults can get additional job training if they need it.

A Is For Ashcroft

Over in kuro5hin's diaries, edg176 said that he was "going to write a Primer on American National Security for K5", but it had balloned into an unpostable 28 pages. I suggested he simplify it a bit and turn it into a Children's Primer on American National Security. Since my example seems to have amused some people, I'll repost it here:

A is for Ashcroft, alarming the nation
B is for Bush, who was on vacation
C is for Chalabi, Iranian spy
D is for Duct Tape, which you're urged to buy
E is for Everyone, who said "No WMD"
F is for Fahrenheit, which you must not see
G is for Ghraib, and atrocities soulless
H is for Homeland, Deutschland Uber Alles
I is for Israel, which half the world blamed
J is for Jesus, who said to invade
K is for Kean, who runs the commission
L is for Libya, which gave up terrorism
M is for Mylroie, who belongs on Art Bell
N is for Nukes, to blow us to hell
O is for Osama, the real bad guy
P is for Pakistan, where Osama hides
Q is for Qaeda, evil murderers
R is for Ridge, and threats in colours
S is for Saudi Arabia, the oil must not stop
T is for Technology, to keep us on top
U is for UN, totally useless
V is for Victory, forever elusive
W is for Wolfowitz, a pure basket case
X is for X-Ray, where torture takes place
Y is for Yasser, made terror respectable
Z is for Zacarias, a courtroom spectacle

Note: Similar things have been done before by at least The Irregular Times, TBogg, Dr. Limerick, J.C. McGowan, Mad Kane, Steve Perry, and Lynne Cheney.

Kerry calls for action in Sudan

John Kerry has finally called for the United States to do something about the genocide in Darfur, Sudan, including to seek a UN resolution to authorize use of force against Sudan and to fund such a UN mission, although he doesn't suggest that there should be US boots on the ground.

The Kennebunkport Candidate

(Warning: Some spoilers. If you haven't seen Manchurian Candidate yet, you probably shouldn't read this. If you're not planning to see it, on the other hand... read on.)

Just saw the updated version of Manchurian Candidate today. Very, very good movie. Strong performances all around. And they managed to update the movie and change the ending from the original without destroying or compromising the central message of the original: In the end, there is some spark of humanity, some force of will that no technology, no science, and no brainwashing can stamp out.

The thing that really struck me, though, is how many parallels there are within this movie to Our Fearless Leader, Dubya. And I'm not just talking about Manchurian Global aka Halliburton as The Evil Multinational Corporation That Uses It's Influence In Government To Boost Its Profits. (TM)

Though Manchurian Global certainly does seem to be doing its best impersonation of Halliburton and the Carlyle Group. Right down to the evil subsidiaries doing bad things that the main company is shocked! Shocked, I tell you! to find out about.

No, it's not that that struck me. Rather, it's the curious parallels between poor Raymond Prentice Shaw, and our dull but loveable Commander-In-Chief.

Fasten your seatbelts. We're about to take a little trip through Tin Foil Hat Land.

In his younger days, Dubya was known as a hard drinking, hard partying, cokehead party animal. Not exactly politician material. Most likely a rebellion against the strict upbringing one can only get from a father who has political aspirations, and who is destined to head the CIA.

Shaw's rebellion against his strict political grooming was to enlist in the Army infantry, instead of going in as an officer.

Like Shaw, both Dubya's grandfather and father were political heavyweights.

Shaw can't quite seem to fully remember his war experience.

Dubya can't quite seem to fully remember where he was during his stint in the national guard. But he's sure he was serving honorably!

Except that nobody in Alabama remembers seeing him there.

But he's sure he did his duty!

Like Raymond Shaw, Dubya was 'lost'. Where was he? Was he AWOL?

Or was he getting his brain scrubbed?

It would certainly explain all the blank stares he seems to give.

And, if they accidentally added a bit too much bleach to the scrubbing solution, it would certainly explain the inability to speak the language.

But that's just silly. If we were to believe that, we'd expect to see some sort of dramatic character change for the hard-partying, grown-up frat-boy Dubya...

... hmm. He has become "born-again", and sworn off his hard partying ways.

But that's just silly. If we were to believe that, we'd expect to see the hands of Halliburton and Carlyle all over his past, grooming him for the Presi-

... hmm. His father was on the board of Carlyle. And Carlyle investors did bail out nearly all of Dubya's failed business ventures.

Like Shaw, Dubya entered the world of national politics with relatively little experience (2 terms in Congress for Shaw, 1+ terms as Texas Governor [which is widely considered to be the least demanding governorship in the nation, due to the fact that the legislature meets once every 2 years] for Dubya...)

But that's just silly. If we were to believe that, we'd expect to see underhanded means used to get Dubya into off-

... hmm.

But that's just silly. If we were to believe that, we'd expect to see proxies for companies like Halliburton put in positions of pow-

... hmm.

But that's just silly. If we were to believe that, we'd expect to see Dubya take this nation to war, when the only people likely to benefit from said war would be companies like Halli-

... hmm.

But that's just silly. If we were to believe that, we'd expect Dubya and his administration try to use fear as a weapon to distract the people and the media from all the goodies he's giving out to his corporate mast-

... hmm.

But that's just silly. If we were to believe that, we'd expect Dubya to just be a puppet to hig-

... hmm.

And would that put John Kerry in the Denzel Washington role? The experienced soldier, fighting to save the nation from the corporate proxy, the multinational sleeper agent, the Kennebunkport Candidate, getting another 4 years in office?

But that's just silly. If we were to believe that, we'd expect to see efforts to sabotage voting in key states, perhaps by introducing easily hackable voting machines in key states, from a company whose president is a huge Republican don-

... hmm.

President Bush. President George Bush. George Walker Bush...

(Note: I don't really believe Dubya's been brainwashed by an evil multinational corporation. But the parallels are kinda creepy, aren't they?)

D'oh

Somehow I've ended up on a Democratic Party email list, probably after filling out a Party survey and checking the "I do not want to receive further communications from the Democratic Party" box. Most of the messages are partisan palp, but this email from Mary Beth Cahill threw me for a loop:

Dear David Turover,

You've done it again. When George W. Bush's Republican allies unleashed a vicious smear attack against John Kerry -- spreading lies about his service in Vietnam -- you responded with overwhelming support.

The fscking fsck?!?!?? I mentioned the allegations, but.. oh, wait.

Actually, they're trying to say that I gave overwhelming support to Kerry in opposing the allegations, in terms of money, which I didn't. Somebody at the DNC needs a copy editor.

And now it's personal

A friend of mine is being deployed to Iraq.

I haven't talked to him in years -- I tend to lose track of those friends I don't keep in the closest contact with -- but it's still hitting me. I've known this guy and his family since I was 3 or 4. I care about him, and I don't want him to get hurt.

I've said before that everyone over there is someone's friend, someone's son, daughter, brother, sister. Apparently, I've never really known it as I was saying it. It all feels different now.

Quickies

• Via cheekyweebisom, the CDC is requiring funding recipients to delete information about condom use and to falsely state that condoms are ineffective against HIV. You have until August 16 (two days from now) to email the CDC or fax your complaint to 404-639-3125.
• New Jersey Governor Jim McGreevey resigned after admitting to an adulterous homosexual affair. The conspiracy theory of the moment is that McGreevey's alleged lover, Golan Cipel might have been an Israeli spy, given that someone of the same name worked at the Israeli Consulate in 1995 and Cipel was scandalously appointed by McGreevey to head New Jersey's antiterrorism department without any experience. Cipel claims there was nothing between him and McGreevey, only that McGreevey had made advances on him.
• Britain's courts allow evidence gained from torture
• California Supreme Court annuls the state's gay marriages. Notable is the lawyerly way they did it: by initially presuming that the higher laws of the state and federal Constitutions do not apply, they found that the marriages violated lesser state law and declare this decision irrelavant to an argument over whether the Constitutions apply or not.
• Fundamentalist Christian supporters of Israel are threatening to stay home from the elections unless Bush renounces his support for a PLO state. I would like to remind them that Bush is the first leader of the US to explicitly declare support for a PLO state inside Israel, and to suggest they consider voting for the party of Dianne Feinstein, Joe Lieberman, Herb Kohl, Russell Feingold, Henry Waxman, Barney Frank... well, maybe they can ignore that last one.
• Speaking of Fundamentalist Christians, who are probably going to refuse that last request after I plug this link, Jim Wallis of Call to Renewal laments "a hijacked faith".
• Too little, maybe too late: the African Union is sending about 300 troops to Darfur.
• Also in Africa, shades of the Rwanda genocide as over 150 Tutsi refugees were slaughtered in Burundi
• Maldives declares martial law after pro-democracy protests
• Via JWZ, a look inside al-Qaeda's hard drive.
• Warlords fighting it out in Herat, Afghanistan
• Fred Kaplan of Slate suggests "there might be no way out of Iraq"
• Tom the Dancing Bug hilariously notes how the Bush administration's rhetoric on Iraq has changed
• Eric Alterman notes PBS's right-wing bias
• India carries out its first execution in nine years
• An argument for public education: Private school in California teaches that the US has 53 states, that World War 2 ended in 1942, that the Senate and House of Representatives are reserved for Democrats and Republicans, respectively, and so on
• Security attempts to confiscate White Wolf book as "inappropriate"
• Olympics to expel people using products whose manufacturers didn't pay the International Olympic Committee
• The Space Station was resupplied
• New rootkit doesn't put any files on the target machine
• Persuasive study showing Windows's Total Cost of 0wnership is lower than Linux's [PDF]
• Congress legalizes fax spamming, considers legalizing phone spamming
• Via error: an interview with John Perry Barlow

Charles Krauthammer Supports Terrorists

In his latest column, Washington Post opinionist Charles Krauthammer describes what he calls John Kerry's:

unbroken string of misjudgments about the national security requirements of the United States: supporting the idiotic nuclear freeze, opposing crucial Pershing II deployments in Europe, opposing support for the Nicaraguan anti-communist insurgency, voting against the first Gulf War, trying to cut post-Cold War intelligence funding.

Emphasis mine. That the "Nicaraguan anti-communist insurgency" was a terrorist war conducted almost entirely against civilians is not in any dispute. Ergo, Krauthammer is a terrorist-lover. If you don't think a terrorist-lover deserves the Washington Post's ink, tell that to the Post's ombudsman, editorial page editor, or deputy editorial page editor, or send a letter to the editor. Please don't spam.

Who Wants to Be President?

The trend towards reality TV is starting to drive me nuts. First there was Survivor, which was a bit cool, but then we got into stuff like Temptation Island, and Who Wants to Marry a Millionaire, and others of that type, which strikes me as a bit overboard. But that doesn't top this one.

I wish I was joking when I point out there actually is a reality television show called American Candidate.

As the show's webpage states:

Ten candidates from across the country have been chosen to compete in Showtime Networks' unscripted and unprecedented reality series, AMERICAN CANDIDATE. The series focuses on six men and four women of various ages, backgrounds and political views, including Independents, Democrats, Republicans, Greens and Libertarians. AMERICAN CANDIDATE is hosted by Emmy® Award-winning talk show host Montel Williams.

Okay. Our European readers? You know what you have to do. ;)

On the other hand, isn't the real Presidential race a bit of reality TV in itself? Maybe we're just going meta on ourselves...

Gossian Blur

George W. Bush picked Congressman Porter Goss of Florida to be the new Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. I'd never heard of him before the announcement, so I'm still forming an opinion about the appointment.

Goss is a former CIA agent and has been head of the House Intelligence Committee for eight years. Senators Bill Nelson and Bob Graham, both Florida Democrats, praise Goss as "a natural" for the position, in Nelson's words. These are strong factors in Goss's favour.

On the other hand, former CIA Director Stansfield Turner says "this is the worst appointment that's ever been made to the office of Director of Central Intelligence because that's an office that needs to be kept above partisan politics". There are worries from some Democrats that Goss, alleged by them to be a hard-core partisan, would abuse the CIA in favour of his party. Democratic partisan David Corn is currently slamming Goss for accepting Bush's claims about Iraq at face value, refusing to allow an investigation into Ahmed Chalabi's relationship with the Bush Administration, and belittling the Bush Administration's outing of Joe Wilson's undercover CIA agent wife, calling the CIA's uproar over the latter "wild and unsubstantiated allegations" and "partisan politics during an election year". Also, Buzzflash is alleging that Goss had something to do with cocaine dealing and has somehow earned over $50 million as a Congressman, and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern, an open opponent of the Bush Administration, expects Goss to be a terrible Director.

I'm sure I haven't heard the whole story on Porter Goss, but there are already good reasons that anyone can cite to support or oppose this nomination. My line of thinking is, when deciding on something new, start with no and let the bad points outweigh the good. From that perspective, I'm not ready to give Goss a thumbs-up yet, and what is alleged about him is a serious impediment to gaining my approval.

Analysis of George W. Bush on the Issues

William found elegance in John Kerry's platform, and it is a coincidence that shortly thereafter I found a summary of Bush's positions on the Arizona Republic website. These are selected quotes which might not be phrased and put together the way Bush wants them put together, but in any case, they're Bush's positions and they're far from elegant. This deserves criticism, and it's going to get some. I'm a longtime Bush-basher on a Berkeley website with a John Kerry banner on the sidebar, so hell yes I'm biased. Let's go.

Terrorism

"Terrorists declared war on the United States of America,"

The Bush Administration's failure to recognize this threat and its early acting against the recommendations of anti-terrorism advisors is reason enough to vote against Bush. I would rather have someone in office who might do the right thing from the start than one with a proven track record of doing the wrong thing until it becomes as painfully evident as can be that what they are doing is wrong. Also, Congressional Republicans' pretending that they're the only ones recognizing the threat after September 11 when they only then caught up to where the waiting Democrats had been since 1998 is reason enough to toss them out.

"and war is what they got. We have captured or killed many key leaders of the al Qaeda network. And the rest of them know we're on their trail."

And boy, do they ever know we're on their trail.

"In Afghanistan, and in Iraq, we gave ultimatums to terror regimes. Those regimes chose defiance, and those regimes are no more."

I don't recall terrorism being the reason most cited to conquer Iraq, and that most cited reason is curiously missing from this document. By mentioning Iraq in the same breath as the terrorists who declared war on the United States, Bush is trying to pretend that these same terrorists were supported by Iraq when links between the two are just as intangible as Iraq's nuclear arsenal, or the illusory links between Bush himself and the September 11 terrorists.

I also remember the United States being just as defiant of the United Nations as Iraq, if not more defiant than Iraq, and I remember Iraq making several offers of surrender in the days leading up the the US attack with the only stated condition being Saddam remaining in power. Bush was out for heads, not for solving a problem.

On the other hand, cutting off Iraqi funds to the Palestinian Authority is probably the best thing Bush could have done for the Arab-Israeli conflict, and we've seen the Intifadah screech to a halt after March 2003, but that's not very relevant to what Bush is trying to take credit for.

"Fifty million people in those two countries once lived under tyranny, and today they live in freedom."

Did Bush do a survey of Afghanistan and count out the populations of those provinces still under Taliban control, and those Iraqi sectors under Baathist control? Plus, the whole of Iraq is by any measure not free and shall not be free until Iraq can make its own decisions independent of the will of the United States and any other occupying power.

Iraq

"And who will say that Iraq was better off when Saddam Hussein was strutting and killing"

Yeah, who will say that? Anyone hear any major Democratic politicians saying that? That's not the point, it's the way Bush went into the country that people are upset about.

"or that the world was safer when he held power?"

That's indisputable -- the world was safer when at least the West, if no one else, held to a moral principle that no country should invade another without a damned good reason and/or vetting from the United Nations Security Council. In addition, the only world-affecting threats from Saddam's Iraq were his support of the Palestinian Authority, which only harmed Israel, and the Ansar/Zarqawi encampment which was outside of Saddam's control and which Saddam couldn't do anything about without going through a few thousand Kurds and losing what little diplomatic chips he'd recovered from the decade's losses. Saddam was a significant threat to his own people, of course, but that isn't what Bush is claiming here.

"Who doubts that Afghanistan is a more just society and less dangerous without Mullah Omar playing host to terrorists from around the world?"

Have you heard any major Democratic politicans say we shouldn't have invaded Afghanistan? I only hear that from left-wingers who haven't yet gotten the memo that the Taliban really was allied with al-Qaeda, and there are darn few of them left these days.

"And Europe, too, is plainly better off with Milosevic answering for his crimes, instead of committing more."

Praise for Clinton, coming from Bush, surprising to see.

This whole section misses the point by a mile. People have been criticising Bush's means, and he responds by praising the ends. Some of us had mothers when we were young, and among the things they taught us were that when the means are wrong, the ends don't justify the means.

Tyranny

"As recent history has shown, we cannot turn a blind eye to oppression just because the oppression is not in our own backyard. No longer should we think tyranny is benign because it is temporarily convenient. Tyranny is never benign to its victims, and our great democracies should oppose tyranny wherever it is found."

I'm most concerned with the tyranny in my own back yard, and I see the possible establishment of a tyrannic dominion over the United States as a greater long-term threat to the country than a couple of religious nutcases blowing up a few cities and us blowing up everything in sight in response.

I see John Ashcroft declare the United States Constitution to hold only "phantoms of lost liberties". I see motions to oppose fair and free elections and third-party monitoring of those elections. I see US citizens jailed without charge, without right to see a lawyer, without right to be seen by a judge. I see the same torture practiced on the US's enemies in Central America by foreigners trained by the US, now being practiced on the US's enemies by US personnel -- trained to do so -- in Iraq, Cuba, and Afghanistan, and realize it is now a shorter leap before the US directly practices torture on its own people. I see secret memos from the highest legal authorities in the Administration declaring their opinion that the Presidency is by all rights a dictatorship which should hold no respect for the law as long as it has control of the Army and can use the Army to force its will upon the other branches of government. This scares the hell out of me. It should scare the hell out of you.

Getting back to the subject, the nature of the war on al-Qaeda requires that the United States turn a blind eye to some tyrannies and oppression, and Bush has been doing exactly that in such places as Saudi Arabia, Uzbekistan, Pakistan, Sudan. Some are places even more tyrannical than Saddam's Iraq, but since they're on our side against al-Qaeda, they're the Good Guys for the time being. It is a good thing that Bush is tolerating such oppressive regimes to use them against al-Qaeda, but in claiming that he is not, Bush is lying.

Another word of warning: The last great power which sought to use its might to end tyranny and bring peace, freedom, and democracy to the world was the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Middle East

"The forward strategy of freedom must also apply to the Arab-Israeli conflict. It's a difficult period in a part of the world that has known many. Yet, our commitment remains firm. We seek justice and dignity. We seek a viable, independent state for the Palestinian people, who have been betrayed by others for too long. (Applause.) We seek security and recognition for the state of Israel, which has lived in the shadow of random death for too long."

There's not much that can be said here because not much was said here. Claiming support for both Israel and the PLO is one thing, but making it work when they're both after the same spot of land is another. Bush is the first president to explicitly say that the PLO deserves statehood rights, and not many people give him credit for this.

Same-sex marriages

"Marriage is a sacred institution between a man and a woman. Today's decision of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court violates this important principle. I will work with congressional leaders and others to do what is legally necessary to defend the sanctity of marriage."

Here is a difference more of opinion than facts, so I'll give my opinion. The institution of marriage has been many things over the years, and may well continue to change. The bride still wears a veil because the groom originally was not supposed to know which daughter the bride's father was giving away until after the deal was finished. Marriage is as sacred as the individual spouses want to make it, and their decision is between them and their God. Since homosexuals can love each other as much as heterosexuals, and since so many economic benefits are offered to married couples, and since there are religions which are not opposed to the idea, I respectfully disagree with the opinions of George W. Bush. For once.

Abortion

"The best case against partial birth abortion is a simple description of what happens and to whom it happens. It involves the partial delivery of a live boy or girl, and a sudden, violent end of that life. Our nation owes its children a different and better welcome."

Agree or disagree, this misses the issue that Bush is opposed to all abortion from the moment of conception. I blame the Arizona Republic for poorly selective quoting.

Taxes

"I have twice led the United States Congress to pass historic tax relief for the American people."

The historic tax relief without historic budget cuts have led to historic deficits which have produced a historic debt. Enough of this, and the US's days as a superpower will be history.

"Here is what we believe, and what I know -- that when Americans have more take-home pay to spend, to save or invest, the whole economy grows, and people are more likely to find a job."

It's called Demand-Side Economics, and when Democrats have suggested that the tax cuts be tilted a little more to the deamnd side, Bush has opposed them -- except when he ran a poll and found out there was support for Lieberman's tax rebate checks, so he turned 180 degrees and sent them out with his own campaign slogan on the envelopes.

"We also know whose money we spend in Washington -- it is not the government's money, it is the people's money."

The government is supposed to represent the best interests of the people. That's why when the government files charges against some crook, it is The People Vs. Joe Blow. It's true that there are some bureaus which have become leeches interested in self-sustainment without producing much in return, but they've lost track of the general point of government. We don't need our leaders to lose track of it too.

Education

"Two-and-a-half years ago there was a lot of talk about education reform, but there wasn't much action. So I acted. I called for, and the Congress passed, the No Child Left Behind Act. With a solid bipartisan majority, we delive red the most dramatic education reforms in a generation."

The No Child Left Behind Act was designed to leave children behind by setting such high standards that most schools would lose their eligibility for federal funding. Regardless any debate over whether education should be funded by the federal government at all, as opposed to it being a matter best handled by states and localities, the Act failed in its stated intent.

Health Care

"We want people to own and manage their own health care plan. We want more people to own and manage their own retirement accounts."

Here might be the most dishonest phrasing I have ever seen by Bush or even any of his cronies. Juice up your noggin's English comprehension cortex and read that again. What does it mean when you "own your own" health care plan or retirement plan? It means you don't have a health care plan or retirement plan, and are paying for your health care and retirement out of your own pocket.

"We want more people to own their own small business. You see, this administration understands that when a person owns something, he or she has a vital stake in the future of our country."

Bush is still on the subject of health care here. It seems he's saying that by making health care something that is paid for out of pocket rather than part of one's pay or an expected government safety net, people will be more loyal to the country, or something like that.

Culture

"In a compassionate society, people respect one another and take responsibility for the decisions they make."

The lack of respect by leading Republicans for opposing viewpoints has been amazing, as has the lack of responsibility shown by leading Republicans and their corporate allies for their actions, Bush personally included in both points. Either Bush is trying to say that Republicans are not compassionate, or he's lying again.

"We're changing the culture of America from one that has said, if it feels good, just go ahead and do it, and if you've got a problem, blame somebody else,"

Iraq.

"to a culture in which each of us understands we're responsible for the decisions we make in life."

It must be this understanding of responsibility that has made Bush and his judicial appointees block investigations into possible misconduct by his administration. Hopefully, he will learn a harsh lesson in responsibility this November.

More Quick Linkage

• Can't let the spy outing story lose legs -- Juan Cole watches the fallout rain down. I wasn't sure it was quite that bad as opposed to merely a strategy-changing fuckup of gigantic proportions, but Jesse nailed it. Meanwhile, it's not getting any traction in the media, though Senator Schumer is trying to raise hackles about it
• The Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, that set of malcontent veterans who didn't have anything against John Kerry until after he criticized the US military's training and leadership and is led by one guy who was exposed as a partisan fraud 30 years ago and a few others who have been exposed as partisan loons, have one charge against Kerry that actually might stick. One of Kerry's war stories, told several times since the 1970s, is of going into Cambodia surreptitiously and having a small firefight with VC and/or Khmer Rouge around Christmastime 1968. However, three of Kerry's crewman deny that the Cambodia operation took place, so Kerry has some explaining to do. Of course, need I remind anyone that Kerry's opponent George W. Bush has been lying about his National Guard service since forever, and hasn't stopped after the hard evidence came out? No link since I can't find this being reported on by anybody remotely sane, but the meat of it looks like a legitimate story.
• Eugene Oregon of Demagogue links to a pair of backgrounders on the politics behind the genocide in Sudan (direct: 1, 2)
• For The Ride notes the extremely low conviction rate for sexual offenses in Australia.
• Michelle Malkin has a book out claiming that the concentration camps for Japanese Americans were a good thing
• Offthekuff notes that Bush Sr. used something like the term Compassionate Conservative in 1964
• Martini Republic is all over the latest anti-Kerry veterans' group, as well as Bush refusing to denounce the real one and Fox claiming he did
• Zibblsnrt noted that the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe is sending election monitors to the US, and Free Republic is calling for their assassination
• Rough and Tumble notes a report that the San Francisco Neighbors Resource Center embezzled a $108,000 state charity grant to the campaign of California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley
• Slacktivist notes that Delaware's corrections department is going to court to force prison guards to work voluntary overtime.
• " What do Kalamazoo, Evansville, Albuquerque, Stockton, Trenton, Phoenix, Columbia, St. Louis, Knoxville, and Charleston have in common? All are among the cities where the secret service or police have jailed people for displaying anti-Bush signs during public appearances by his eminence, King George the W."
• Josh Marshall notes that think tanks which influence the US leadership can themselves be influenced by foreign governments
• Fox news review of Disney's desktop computer system involves attacking Disney for allowing homosexuals to visit Disney World
• Bush's AIDS policy director Tom Coburn says "The gay community has infiltrated the very centers of power in every area across this country, and they wield extreme power...That agenda is the greatest threat to our freedom that we face today. Why do you think we see the rationalization for abortion and multiple sexual partners? That's a gay agenda."
• In Jackson County, Alabama, a man was jailed for posting a sign in his front yard saying "Our Court System Is A Joke". Judge Haralson also to have every Jackson County, Alabama resident who ever criticized the Ninth Circuit's "Under God" ruling to be jailed in... wait for it...
• Finally, here's an informative description of the NFL Hall of Fame induction ceremony.

Elegance

Recently, the Kerry/Edwards campaign released a 263-page .pdf document at http://www.johnkerry.com/pdf/our_plan_for_america.pdf detailing -- detailing, in precise points and numerical figures -- their plans for leading the nation if elected. I sat down a few days ago with the intent of reading the 120-odd pages actually dedicated to facts and plan outlines (the remainder include photographs and excerpts from related speeches), and writing a summary for the NFZ.

This turned out to be more difficult than I had expected. The document's material part is hard to summarize; I had thought I would be able to strip a lot of rhetoric, but there's just enough rhetoric to let the whole thing flow smoothly. (It's quite easy to read, in fact, and I encourage you to do so if you have a few hours, even over the course of a few days, whether you're a devoted Kerry supporter, an "Anybody but Bush" voter, or a Republican.)

The book is information-dense; principles are stated, then main areas of effort that derive from these principles are broken down into discrete goals, each with detailed plans of action intended to achieve them. If I ran a business, this is how I would want a business plan presented. From an academe's point of view, though, another word comes to mind: elegance. The proposed solutions each address numerous separate problems, and often complement each other. The whole thing hangs together; a sudden crisis or unforeseen development in one part wouldn't derail the rest, and there are multiple supports for most parts.

Later I'll bash out a handry summary reference for details of the views espoused and the proposals made. In this post I pick out a few of these principles, goals, and solutions to illustrate parts of this method of operation; I argue that the document is powerful evidence against the charge that John Kerry floats in the political winds. It's stable and doesn't seem like anything someone could bash together on short notice; it draws on a lot of expertise from many sources, harmonized by a unified vision. If you're under the impression that Kerry turns with the political breeze, read that doc. If it doesn't convince you he has a driving vision... hey. You'll have something to call him on if he diverges from it.

The first section of the book is on security, the next on economics, and the last on domestic policy. Of course, all of these issues affect the others: for better security, do you spend more money or find ways to make the same money go further? In either case, how's your funding for domestic priorities? To balance these sometimes-opposing interests requires adhering to clear principles that guide your choices. Let's take a look at one issue: extraterritorial actions against terrorists.

The principle involved is obvious, and is one that even Kerry and Bush agree on: we would much prefer to stop terrorists before they strike, rather than go after them after they have attacked us. President Bush has set out a strategy that calls for pre-emptive attacks when we believe terrorists are preparing to strike. The Kerry/Edwards plan in this case is an example of attacking a single problem from multiple angles.

Taking action off our own soil runs the risk of antagonizing other countries, making it more difficult to gain their cooperation on future matters. Kerry repeatedly stresses the importance of renewing our ties with old allies and improving bonds with other countries before terrorists ever hit the radar. Doing so can make such actions speedier and less costly.

The intelligence for a strike off our own soil must be strong -- witness the recent debates about the qualitiy of our own intelligence before the Iraq war. Kerry calls for a Director of National Intelligence with cabinet-level budgetary and personnel authority, along with a re-emphasis on human intelligence. Note that strengthening ties with our allies also increases the flow of intelligence information to us when links between intelligence services are strengthend; the goals are mutually-supporting.

Before terrorists can carry out a WMD attack, they need WMD. The Kerry plan lays out a series of diplomatic initiatives to secure existing nuclear stocks, including engagement with North Korea and Iran. They also need recruits; spending money now on nonmilitary programs like supporting democratic advancements, economic development, and educational services saves many times that later by denying terrorists uneducated, isolated, poverty-stricken recruits. Even if it doesn't save money in the long run, it would still be preferable to risking the lives of American troops.

The core vision in this can be summed up in the phrase "preventative counerterrorism." All these individual steps spring from the idea that it is more effective, less risky, and less expensive in the long run, to use the might of American ideas and wealth to deny the terrorist "supply chain" of material, recruits, and philosophical currency, and use our intelligence services to detect and halt attacks before they start, rather than to enter upon a cycle of military actions that risk our troops' lives and spend money rapidly without affecting the root of the problem. And if a strike is prepared, or, Heaven forfend, carried to fruition, this course of action will have won us the support infrastructure we need to quickly and smoothly carry out more forceful operations when necessary. (Consider, for example, if Turkey had allowed us to open a second front overland from the north during the Iraq war.) A core theme allows a single issue to be attacked from multiple angles, efficiently and (hopefully) effectively.

The other side of this elegance is a single solution that tackles many problems. Just as you shouldn't expect every thrust to work against a given problem, it's not expected that a single action will solve multiple problems. But multiply useful ideas expand your toolkit for each individual problem and make your overall plan more robust. This sort of solution isn't easy to come up with; most of the ones we know about are the result of long, hard work by many people, and it's good to see that Kerry and Edwards are the kind of leaders who can not only take advice from experts but recognize which advice is going to be the valuable kind.

Consider, then, the following problems, each of which seems almost unrelated to the others: we need a free hand when dealing with the nations of the Middle East. Businesses small and large are finding the capital costs of expansion to be inhibiting growth that would aid the economy. Our economy needs to create jobs in high-skill, high-paying sectors. American science is lagging in schools and running the risk of lagging in the marketplace. We want to preserve our environment and keep our air breathable.

A single plan that touches each of these elements is "energy independence," the goal of having America's energy entirely domestically produced. Is it achievable? Possibly, possibly not, depending on the timescale involved. Kerry and Edwards are more realistic about it than that, and set the numerical goal (measurable targets, economic impact numbers, and clear-eyed discussion of funding sources abound in this document) at 20% of America's energy coming from renewable sources by 2020 (you'll be hearing "20 by 2020" in this campaign, I bet), along with incentives to reduce consumption and making the federal government walk the walk by reducing its own energy consumption by 20 percent (saving $14 billion for taxpayers, which can then be diverted to fund some of his other proposals).

How does energy independence touch all the problems I mentioned? The Kerry/Edwards proposal pursues its goal by incentivizing such things as wing energy and higher-mpg cars through the tax code, funding Department of Energy research into renewable energy, and continue development of hydrogen fuel. In the meantime, the infrastructure investment would be undertaken, such as on the national power grid (which badly needs updating) and non-OPEC sources of fossil fuels, like clean natural gas, would be explored.

Reducing our dependence on foreign oil suppliers makes good business sense as well as good political sense. An oil crunch drives up prices for everyone; we are exposed to political volatility in an unstable region while our hands are tied in dealing with the regimes that control the flow of oil. Any investor knows it's risky to be overly dependent on one income stream -- diversification moderates risk and increases returns. Investment in diversifying the national energy portfolio creates jobs directly through funding construction of new plants and power grid updates, and creates very high-skill jobs in the research areas needed, the employment opportunities in turn providing a monetary and academic spur to the math and science studies needed to achieve success in this endeavor. The resulting diversified energy portfolio along with energy-saving techniques and equipment cut the recurring expense of energy costs for families and businesses, allowing expenditures on other priorities. And renewable energy sources (as well as natural gas and hydrogen fuels) create clean power that keeps our air clear and our citizens healthy.

There are even homeland security ramifications. Allow me to quote, God help me, Ann Coulter, in a recent speech she made at my university:

Most hysterically, liberals opposed the war on the grounds that it was "just for oil" ... But moreover, why not go to war "just for oil"? It's like saying "just for food," "just for food." We need oil.

Your point is taken, Ann. Not necessarily agreed with... though at least understood. But if I'm so dependent on something that I have to risk my life to obtain it, I would think it prudent to lessen that dependence. Wouldn't you?

Energy independence won't solve all these problems singlehandedly, of course. But it helps. And if the optimistic projections in one area are just a little rosier than reality turns out to be, the investment still yields valuable gains, because there are so many other possible benefits.

Elegance.

Sibel Edmonds's Open Letter To Tom Kean

Sibel Edmonds has written a letter blasting the Sep11 commission for its toothlessness. She lists details and names names. Since I don't see other copies on Google yet that aren't 404ed or behind registration screens, the letter is mirrored beneath the cut.

Thomas Kean, Chairman
National Committee on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
301 7th Street, SW
Room 5125
Washington, D.C. 20407

Dear Chairman Kean:

It has been almost three years since the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, during which time we have been placed under a constant threat of terror and asked to exercise vigilance in our daily lives. Your commission was created by law to investigate "facts and circumstances related to the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001" and to "provide recommendations to safeguard against future acts of terrorism," and has now issued its "9/11 Commission Report" [pdf]. You are now asking us to pledge our support for this report and its recommendations with our tax money, our security and our lives. Unfortunately, I find your report seriously flawed in its failure to address serious intelligence issues that I, as a witness to the commission, made you aware of. Thus, I must assume that other serious issues I am not aware of were also omitted from your report. These omissions cast doubt on the validity of your report and therefore on its conclusions and recommendations. Considering what is at stake – our national security – we are entitled to demand answers to unanswered questions, and to ask for clarification of issues that were ignored and omitted from the report. I, Sibel Edmonds, a concerned American citizen, a former FBI translator, a whistleblower, a witness for a United States Congressional investigation, a witness and a plaintiff for the Department of Justice Inspector General investigation and a witness for your own 9/11 Commission, request your response to the following questions and issues.

After the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, we, the translators at the FBI's largest and most important translation unit, were told to slow down or even stop translation of critical information related to terrorist activities so that the FBI could present the United States Congress with a record of an "extensive backlog of untranslated documents" and justify its request for budget and staff increases. While FBI agents from various field offices were desperately seeking leads and suspects, and completely depending on FBI HQ and its language units to provide them with needed translations, hundreds of translators were being told by their administrative supervisors not to translate and to let the work pile up (please refer to the CBS 60 Minutes transcript from October 2002 provided to your investigators in January-February 2004). This issue has been confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee (please refer to Sen. Grassley's and Sen. Leahy's letters during the summer of 2002, provided to your investigators in January-February 2004). Apparently, this confirmed report has been substantiated by the Department of Justice Inspector General Report (please refer to DOJ-IG report "Re: Sibel Edmonds and FBI Translation," provided to you prior to the completion of your report). I provided your investigators with a detailed acount of this issue and the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this (please refer to tape-recorded 3.5 hours testimony by Sibel Edmonds, provided to your investigators on Feb. 11, 2004).

Today, almost three years after 9/11, and more than two years since this information has been confirmed and made available to our government, the administrators in charge of language departments of the FBI remain in their positions and in charge of the information front lines of the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence efforts. Your report omits any reference to this most serious issue, foregoing any accountability whatsoever, and your recommendations refrain from addressing this issue, which will have even more serious consequences. This issue is systemic and departmental. Why does your report exclude this information despite the evidence and briefings you received? How can budget increases address and resolve this misconduct by mid-level bureaucratic management? How can the addition of a new bureaucrat, the "intelligence czar," in a cocoon away from the action, address and resolve this problem?

Melek Can Dickerson, a Turkish translator, was hired by the FBI after Sept. 11 and placed in charge of translating the most sensitive information related to terrorists and criminals under the Bureau's investigation. Dickerson was granted top secret clearance, which can be granted only after conducting a thorough background investigation. Dickerson used to work for semi-legit organizations that were FBI targets of investigation. She had ongoing relationships with two individuals who were FBI targets of investigation. For months, Dickerson blocked all-important information related to these semi-legit organizations and the individuals she and her husband associated with. She stamped hundreds, if not thousands, of documents related to these targets as "not pertinent." Dickerson attempted to prevent others from translating these documents important to the FBI's investigations and our fight against terrorism. With the assistance of her direct supervisor, Mike Feghali, she took hundreds of pages of top-secret intelligence documents outside the FBI to unknown recipients. With Feghali's assistance, she forged signatures on top-secret documents related to 9/11 detainees. After all these incidents were confirmed and reported to FBI management, Melek Can Dickerson was allowed to remain in her position, to continue the translation of sensitive intelligence received by the FBI, and to maintain her top-secret clearance. Apparently bureaucratic mid-level FBI management and administrators decided that it would not look good for the Bureau to have this security breach and espionage case investigated and publicized, especially after the Robert Hanssen scandal. The Melek Can Dickerson case was confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee. It received major coverage by the press. According to Director Robert Mueller, the inspector general criticized the FBI for failing to adequately pursue the espionage report on Melek Can Dickerson. I provided your investigators with a detailed and specific account of this issue, the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this, and additional documents.

Today, more than two years since the Dickerson incident was reported to the FBI, and more than two years since this information was confirmed by the United States Congress and reported by the press, the same people remain in charge of translation quality and security. Dickerson and several FBI targets of investigation hastily left the United States in 2002, and no criminal investigation has been opened. Not only does the supervisor who facilitated this criminal conduct remain in a supervisory position, he has been promoted to supervising Arabic language units of the FBI's counterterrorism and counterintelligence investigations. Your report omits these significant incidents, and your recommendations do not address this serious security breach and likely espionage issue. This issue needs to be investigated and prosecuted. The translation of our intelligence is being entrusted to individuals with loyalties to our enemies. Important "chit-chats" and "chatters" are being intentionally blocked from translation. Why does your report exclude this information and these serious issues despite the evidence and briefings you received? How can budget increases address and resolve this misconduct by mid-level bureaucratic management? How can the addition of an "intelligence czar" solve this problem?

More than four months prior to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, in April 2001, a long-term FBI informant/asset who had been providing the bureau with information since 1990, provided two FBI agents and a translator with specific information regarding a terrorist attack being planned by Osama bin Laden. This asset/informant was previously a high-level intelligence officer in Iran in charge of intelligence from Afghanistan. Through his contacts in Afghanistan, he received information that: 1) Osama bin Laden was planning a major terrorist attack in the United States targeting four or five major cities; 2) the attack was going to involve airplanes; 3) some of the individuals in charge of carrying out this attack were already in place in the United States; 4) the attack was going to be carried out soon, in a few months. The agents who received this information reported it to their superior, Special Agent in Charge of Counterterrorism Thomas Frields at the FBI Washington Field Office, by filing 302 forms, and the translator translated and documented this information. No action was taken by the special agent in charge, and after 9/11 the agents and the translators were told to "keep quiet" regarding this issue. The translator who was present during the session with the FBI informant, Mr. Behrooz Sarshar, reported this incident to Director Mueller in writing, and later to the Department of Justice Inspector General. The press reported this incident, and a report in the Chicago Tribune on July 21, 2004, stated that FBI officials had confirmed that this information was received in April 2001. Furthermore, the Chicago Tribune quoted an aide to Director Mueller saying that Mueller was surprised that the Commission never raised this particular issue with him during the hearing. Mr. Sarshar reported this issue to your investigators on Feb. 12, 2004, and provided them with specific dates, locations, witness names, and contact information for that particular Iranian asset and the two special agents who received the information (please refer to the tape-recorded testimony provided by Mr. Sarshar on February 12, 2004 and given to your investigators). I provided your investigators with a detailed and specific account of this issue, the names of other witnesses, and documents I had seen. Mr. Sarshar also provided the Department of Justice Inspector General with specific information regarding this issue (please refer to DOJ-IG report "Re: Sibel Edmonds and FBI Translation," provided to you prior to the completion of your report).

Almost three years after Sept. 11, many officials still refuse to admit to having specific information regarding the terrorists' plans to attack the United States. The Phoenix Memo, received months prior to the 9/11 attacks, specifically warned FBI HQ of pilot training and its possible link to terrorist activities against the United States. Four months prior to the terrorist attacks, the Iranian asset provided the FBI with specific information regarding the "use of airplanes," "major U.S. cities as targets," and "Osama bin Laden issuing the order." Coleen Rowley likewise reported that specific information had been provided to FBI HQ. All this information went to the same place: FBI Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and the FBI Washington Field Office in Washington, D.C. Yet your report claims that not having a central place where all intelligence could be gathered was one of the main factors in our intelligence failure. Why does your report exclude the information regarding the Iranian asset and Behrooz Sarshar from its timeline of missed opportunities? Why was this significant incident not mentioned, despite the public confirmation by the FBI, witnesses provided to your investigators, and briefings you received directly? Why did you surprise even Director Mueller by not asking him questions regarding this significant incident? (Please remember that you ran out of questions to ask during your hearings with Director Mueller and AG John Ashcroft, so please do not cite a "time limit.") How can budget increases remedy the failures of mid-level bureaucrats at FBI Headquarters? How can the addition of an "intelligence czar" fix this problem?

Over two years ago, and after two unclassified sessions with FBI officials, the Senate Judiciary Committee sent letters to Director Mueller, Attorney General Ashcroft, and Inspector General Glenn Fine regarding the existence of unqualified translators in charge of translating high-level sensitive intelligence. The FBI confirmed at least one case: Kevin Taskesen, a Turkish translator, had been given a job as an FBI translator, despite the fact that he had failed all FBI language proficiency tests. In fact, Kevin could not understand or speak even elementary-level English. He had failed English proficiency tests and did not even score sufficiently in the target language. Still, Kevin Taskesen was hired, not due to a lack of other qualified translator candidates, but because his wife worked at FBI HQ as a language proficiency exam administrator. Almost everyone at FBI HQ and the FBI Washington Field Office knew about Kevin. Yet, Kevin was given the task of translating the most sensitive terrorist-related information, and he was sent to Guantanamo Bay to translate the interrogation of and information for all Turkic language detainees (Turks, Uzbeks, Turkmens, etc.). The FBI was supposed to be trying to obtain information regarding possible future attack plans from these detainees, yet the FBI knowingly sent unqualified translators to gather and translate this information. Furthermore, these detainees were either released, detained or prosecuted based on translations by unqualified translators knowingly sent there by the FBI. Sen. Grassley and Sen. Leahy publicly confirmed Kevin Taskesen's case (please refer to Senate letters and documents provided to your investigators in January-February 2004). The program 60 Minutes showed Kevin's picture and listed him as one of the unqualified translators sent to Guantanamo Bay, as confirmed by the FBI. The Department of Justice Inspector General provided a detailed account of these problems. I provided your investigators with a specific account of this issue and the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this.

After over two years since Kevin Taskesen's case was publicly confirmed, and after almost two years since 60 Minutes broadcast Taskesen's case, Kevin Taskesen remains in his position as sole Turkish and Turkic language translator for the FBI Washington Field Office. After admitting that Kevin Taskesen was not qualified to translate sensitive intelligence and investigation of terrorist activities, the FBI still keeps him in charge of translating highly sensitive documents and leads. Those individuals in the FBI hiring department who facilitated the hiring of unqualified translators due to nepotism/cronyism remain in their positions. Yet your report does not mention this case or the chronic problems within the FBI translation, hiring and screening departments. Accountability for those responsible for these practices that endanger our national security is not brought up even once in your report. Why does your report exclude these serious issues despite the evidence and briefings you received?

In October 2001, approximately one month after the Sept. 11 attack, an agent returned a certain document to the FBI Washington Field Office to have it re-translated. This special agent rightfully believed that, considering the suspect under surveillance and the issues involved, the original translation might have missed information that could prove valuable in the investigation of terrorist activities. After this document was received by the FBI Washington Field Office and re-translated verbatim, the field agent's hunch appeared to be correct. The new translation revealed certain information regarding blueprints, pictures and building material for skyscrapers being sent overseas. It also revealed illegal activities in obtaining visas from certain embassies in the Middle East through network contacts and bribery. However, after the re-translation was completed and the new significant information revealed, the unit supervisor in charge of certain Middle Eastern languages, Mike Feghali, decided NOT to send the re-translated information to the special agent who had requested it. Instead, Feghali sent the agent a note stating that the translation was reviewed and that the original translation was accurate. Feghali argued that sending the accurate translation would hurt the original translator and would cause problems for the FBI language department. The special agent never received an accurate translation of that document. I provided your investigators with a detailed and specific account of this issue, the name and date of this particular investigation, and the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this. This information was also provided to the Department of Justice Inspector General.

Only one month after the catastrophic events of Sept. 11, while many agents were working around the clock to obtain leads and information, the bureaucratic administrators in the FBI's largest and most important translation unit were covering up their past failures, blocking important leads and information, and jeopardizing ongoing terrorist investigations. The supervisor involved in this incident, Mike Feghali, was in charge of important Middle Eastern languages within the FBI Washington Field Office, and had a record of previous misconduct. After this supervisor's prior misconduct was reported to the FBI's higher-level management, the Inspector General's Office, the United States Congress, and the 9/11 Commission, he was promoted to supervisor of the FBI's Arabic language unit. Today, Mike Feghali remains in the FBI Washington Field Office and is in charge of a language unit receiving the chit-chat that our color-coded threat system is based upon. Yet your report contains zero information regarding these systemic problems that led us to our failure in preventing the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In your report, there are no references to individuals responsible for hindering past and current investigations, or those who are willing to compromise our security and our lives for their career advancement and security. Why does your report exclude this information despite all the evidence and briefings you received?

The latest buzz topic regarding intelligence is the problem of sharing information within and between intelligence agencies. The public has still not been told of the intentional obstruction of intelligence. The public has not been told that certain information, despite its relevance to terrorist activities, is not shared with counterterrorism units. This was true prior to 9/11, and it remains true today. If counterintelligence receives information about terrorism that implicates certain nations, semi-legit organizations or the politically powerful in this country, then that information is not shared with counterterrorism, regardless of the consequences. In certain cases, frustrated FBI agents have cited "direct pressure by the State Department." The Department of Justice Inspector General received detailed evidence regarding this issue. I provided your investigators with an account of this issue, the names of other witnesses willing to corroborate this, and the names of U.S. officials involved in these transactions and activities.

After almost three years, the American people still do not know that thousands of lives are jeopardized under apolicy of "protecting certain foreign business relations." The victims' family members still do not realize that answers they have sought relentlessly for over two years have been blocked in the interest of "safeguarding certain diplomatic relations." Your hearings and your report did not even attempt to address these unspoken, unwritten practices, although, unlike me, you were not placed under any gag. Despite your full awareness of criminal conduct by high-level government employees, you have not proposed criminal investigations, even though you are required to do so. How can budget increases resolve these problems when some of them are caused by unspoken practices and unwritten policies? How can an "intelligence czar" override these policies and practices?

I know for a fact that intelligence translation cannot be brushed off as a relatively insignificant issue. Translation units are the frontline in gathering, translating and disseminating intelligence. A warning in advance of the next terrorist attack will probably come in the form of a text in a foreign language that will have to be translated. That message may be given to a translation unit headed by someone like Mike Feghali, who slows down – even stops – translations for the purpose of receiving budget increases for his department, who has participated in criminal activities and security breaches, and who has covered up failures and criminal conduct within the department. That message may go to an unqualified translator such as Kevin Taskesen, so it may never be translated correctly and acted upon. That message may go to an agent of a foreign organization who works as an FBI translator. If an attack then occurs, one that could have been prevented by acting on information in that message, who will tell the families of the victims that nothing more could have been done? There will be no excuse that we did not know, because we do know.

I am writing this letter in light of my direct experience within the FBI's translation unit in the crucial months after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and in light of my firsthand knowledge of certain cases within the Bureau's language units. As you are fully aware, the problems cited in this letter are by no means based upon personal opinion or unverified allegations. As you are fully aware, these issues and incidents have been confirmed by a senior Republican senator, Charles Grassley, and a senior Democrat senator, Patrick Leahy. As you know, according to officials with direct knowledge of the Department of Justice Inspector General's report on my allegations, "none of [my] allegations were disproved." As you are fully aware, even FBI officials "confirmed all [my] allegations and denied none" during their unclassified meetings with the Senate Judiciary staff over two years ago. However, your commission's hearings, 567-page report and recommendations do not include these serious issues, major incidents and systemic problems. Your report's coverage of FBI translation problems consists of a brief microscopic footnote (Footnote #25). Yet your commission is geared to start aggressively pressuring our government to hastily implement your measures and recommendations based upon an incomplete and deficient report.

In order to cure a problem, one must have an accurate diagnosis. In order to correctly diagnose a problem, one must consider and take into account all visible symptoms. Your Commission's investigations, hearings and report have disregarded many visible symptoms. I am emphasizing "visible" because these symptoms have been long recognized by experts from the intelligence community and have been written about in the press. I am emphasizing "visible" because the specific symptoms I provided you with in this letter have been confirmed and publicly acknowledged. During its many hearings your commission chose not to ask the questions necessary to unveil the true symptoms of our failed intelligence system. Your Commission intentionally bypassed these severe symptoms and chose not to include them in its 567-page report. Now, without a complete list of our failures pre-9/11, without a comprehensive examination of true symptoms that exist in our intelligence system, without assigning any accountability whatsoever and, therefore, without a sound and reliable diagnosis, your commission is attempting to divert attention from the real problems and to prescribe a cure through hasty and costly measures. It is like putting a gold-lined porcelain cap over a deeply decayed tooth without first treating the root.

Sistani Ailing

Via Juan Cole, Ayatollah Ali Sistani, official leader of Iraq's Shiites, has fallen ill and is being treated in London and has named Ishaq Fayyad as his possible successor. Sistani has been instrumental in keeping the majority of Iraqi Shiites pacified, and his loss could be a blow to further pacification efforts.

Walking With My Feet Ten Feet Off Of Beale And A Gun In My Face

Remember the Iraqi civic leaders banned from the Memphis City Council because they were Ay-rabs? Well, they got mugged the next day. My ironymeter is pegging. Thanks to Collective Sigh for the link.

Chalabi Indicted

Via DKos, Ahmed Chalabi has been indicted for counterfeiting.

If you're new to the party and don't know who Chalabi is, give this a glance over and read this, this and this.

More Even Yet Another Iraq Torture Scandal Again

Via Brad Delong, First Draft notes one place where the US will respect Iraqi sovereignty: when Iraqi police are torturing prisoners. An Oregonian national guard unit, led by a few eagle-eyed soldiers and Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson, saw the torture taking place at the Iraqi Interior Ministry and raided the Iraqi compound to stop it. After radioing in a report, the Lieutenant Colonel and his men were ordered to withdraw and let the torturing continue. Expect the whistleblower, Captain Jarrell Southall, to retire for personal reasons really soon now and the whole thing be forgotten.

There aren't enough four letter words to describe how I am feeling. The Interior Ministry is the Iraqi state police and intelligence, who have been trained by the United States for the past year, and the US has a history of training foreign police to conduct torture. If you go up the chain, chances are you'll find one of Michael Moore's Stupid White Men. I don't like that being even a possibility under consideration.

Azzam.com webmaster arrested

Babar Ahmad, one of the webmasters of Azzam.com, has been arrested for soliciting funds to support terrorism. Found with him was information about vulnerabilities in a US carrier group, provided by a US sailor, so we can expect someone to visit a brig real soon now.

There's also a personal connection here. Back in the day when I would try to talk some sense into the lunatics at Indymedia, they would often present Azzam as the legitimate alternative to Western news services. It immediately raised numerous red flags -- the site was worse than Fox claims al-Jazeera to be, much worse -- and a little Googling found that it shared the name of Abdullah Azzam (alt link) (alt link), the mentor to Osama bin Laden and other terrorists who was assassinated in 1989. I figured it was a great place for the FBI to track people declaring their support for waging war against the US and forgot about it. It's a surprise to see Azzam in the news after not hearing of it for so long, but not a surprise to see the circumstances.

A word of warning: As I recall, at one time Azzam claimed to be the most read Arab news site in the world, even one of the top websites in the world, with millions of visitors a day. Apparently, this stuff sells.

Oy Vey.

For those people who might have wondered why the US has had such a hard time finding and cultivating sources of human intelligence in the Middle East... I believe I have your answer right here.

The highlights:

U.S. officials providing justification for anti-terrorism alerts revealed details about a Pakistani secret agent, and confirmed his name while he was working under cover in a sting operation, Pakistani sources said on Friday.

"After his capture he admitted being an al Qaeda member and agreed to send e-mails to his contacts," a Pakistani intelligence source told Reuters. "He sent encoded e-mails and received encoded replies. He's a great hacker and even the U.S. agents said he was a computer whiz."

... so, lemme see if I got this right.

A month ago, Pakistan captures this guy Khan. They kick the crap outta him, threaten to do unpleasant things to his reproductive organs, and whammo, he's seen the light, and agrees to help us out by sending e-mails to all his old Al-Quida buddies.

Needless to say, Pakistan does NOT announce that they've captured him, since that would completely eliminate his usefulness (if you're getting e-mails from your terrorist buddy who was just arrested, you're probably not going to take them at face value. It's not like Pakistani prisons offer internet access.)

This guy can do all sorts of useful stuff. Solicit info about plans/people/sources of money/etc. Spread misinformation. Even lay traps so the Pakistanis (and the US) can capture more Al Quida folks.

And then, trying to shore up the shaky case for their 'Orange Alert', which was being reported as being based on 3-4 year-old info... our government discloses the name of this double agent.

SWEET FSCKING BUDDHA CHAINED TO A WHEEL AND ROLLED DOWN A HILL.

What in the name of the Marx Brothers is wrong with these people? Can they possibly be so stupid as to disclose the identity of a highly valuable double agent just to shore up domestic support for their heavy-handed scare tactics?

... don't answer that. Just don't. I already know the answer.

More quickies

• Adding to Matt Gunn's analysis of Swift Boat Veterans For Truth that was mentioned yesterday, the Wall Street Journal(!!) is deriding "Sham Charges Against A War Hero". A passage highlighted by Republicans for Kerry:

  Indeed, 10 of the 11 men who served on his two swift boats all have sworn by John Kerry; nine living members were in Boston. Every serious journalist that has examined the record has come to the same conclusion, the Boston Globe and Washington Post most prominently. Even Charles Colson, the White House aide who masterminded the anti-Kerry efforts in the Nixon years, was unable, despite a concerted effort, to find "anything negative" about Mr. Kerry.

  Also, the SBVT webmaster is the Director of Free Republic, and Media Matters digs up some ugly quotes from Unfit For Command co-author Jerome R. Corsi.

• Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association President Phil Boyer thanks Kerry for not demanding no-fly zones over his campaign stops the way Bush has
• Primedia History Group senior editor Joe Bageant calls the Christian Reconstructionist movement "a covert Christian jihad for control of America and the entire world...an extraordinarily dangerous mass psychosis." I hadn't heard of Primedia, but they produce thehistory.net and several magazines. In any case, this article appears independently written.
• Congress passing more pro-spam laws
• Moqtada al Sadr has called off the ceasefire and is attacking US forces in Iraq again. The US reports 300 Sadrists killed in Najaf, which should put a dent in their control of the town if true.
• jmhm notes the different standards the New York Times uses when reporting on Democrats and Republicans
• MoveOn finally gets some big names in their anti-Bush concerts. Mellencamp looks at the Bush Administration and says, that ain't America for you and me.
• Juliusblog has a chart of terror alerts matching dips in Bush's approval ratings, and commentary
• 802.11 packet injection tool tested at Defcon (NSFW)

Quickies

Lt. Josh Rushing, the Public Affairs officer in the documentary _Control Room_, has been forced out of the Marines after higherups saw the movie.

Two from the Shrub:

“Let me talk about the intelligence in Iraq. First of all, we all thought we’d find stockpiles of weapons. We may still find weapons. We haven’t found them yet.

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

The Onion imagines what would happen if Bush kept a blog. Don't miss the screenshot.

Matt Gunn dissects Swift Boat Veterans for Truth, the reincarnation of Richard Nixon's Vietnam Veterans for a Just Peace.

After being blasted by the American Library Associated, the Justice Department rescinded a recent order to libraries to destroy copies of Civil and Criminal Forfeiture Procedure, Select Criminal Forfeiture Forms, Select Federal Asset Forfeiture Statutes, Asset forfeiture and money laundering resource directory, and Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000.

Seven past American Bar Association presidents condemn Bush's lawyers' pro-torture power grab. See also the earlier NFZ article about that.

...And sometimes, you have to cry

• via Sebastian, the owner of the Washington Times sold Soviet nuclear-missile submarines to North Korea ten years ago, and Jane's says North Korea has now developed the technology to use them
• A voter in Kansas City reports that someone somehow changed his registration to another district
• The Secret Service jailed a Sikh and forced him to sign over his medical records because he wore a beard and turban and was photographing the college he attended. They also totally ignored his Saudi Muslim friend who owns the camera, showing they can't even be stupid racists correctly.
• Via Blog For Arizona: There are allegations of ballot fraud in the vote for an Arizona representative to the Republican Party National Committee. After seeing evidence suggesting the allegations have some weight to them, Arizona Republican Party Chairman Bob Fannin opposes any remedy to the possibly fixed vote.
• Houston crime lab faked DNA test results, thousands of cases might be retried (registration required, but they let in visitors from google)

Sometimes you have to laugh...

So, George W. Bush and John Kerry were both campaigning in Davenport, Iowa today. As of last report, there were not a fistfight between the president and his challenger.

However, in Davenport today, three banks were robbed.

Remember, we're keeping America safer, but we're apperantly not keeping the safes of America safe. (Thanks to Zibblsnrt for the punchline.)

Irony, Thy Name Is Democracy

It must've sounded like a good idea at the time.

A group of seven Iraqi civic and community leaders were invited to the US by the State Department to tour around the US and learn about how our democratic government works at the local level. Presumably, they would then take this information back to their colleagues in Iraq, having gained a couple of key insights that they'd share:

1) "The system the Americans have over there isn't perfect, but it has its good points. Let's try'n learn from that!"

2) "Hey! Those Americans aren't all infidel pig dogs who want to wage war on Islam and kill Arabs!"

Sounds like a nice little bit of diplomacy, right?

Well, not to the City Council Chairman of Memphis, Tennessee.

Iraqis visiting on a civil rights tour were barred from city hall after the city council chairman said it was too dangerous to let them in.

"We don't know exactly what's going on. Who knows about the delegation, and has the FBI been informed?" Brown said. "We must secure and protect all the employees in that building."

Sweet Buddha chained to a wheel and rolled down a hill... I love my country, but sometimes I'm convinced that the vast majority of the people in America need to be beaten with a sack of doorknobs, each with the word "CLUE" carved into them.

And we're all concerned about who the Iraqis are going to elect? Shouldn't we be more concerned with the freaks, psychos, and morons we're electing, right here in the good ol' US of A?

Make Bush your whipping boy!

It says it all that somebody came up with the idea of this site existing: The Subservient President.

Just tell him 'Osama' and watch. That makes the whole thing worth it.

Bush Terrible On Anti-Terror

The recent arrest of Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani and the resulting terrorist threat warnings are an example of how poor a job Bush is doing in fighting the terrorists who attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Since securing central Afghanistan, Bush has loosened pressure on the Taliban and al-Qaeda until election season approached, when he told Pakistan to hurry up and arrest someone important for the Democratic Convention. Now, from the Ghailani arrest came information about new threats which have led to these terror alerts. If this last report is true, there are actual terrorist plans to be worried about this time.

Since Bush has been keeping the heat off the terrorists for so long, the terrorists are that much further along in their planning than they would have been had there been someone in office who cared more about national security than getting elected and would have moved to capture Ghailani earlier. Another leader would have raised the pressure to get al-Qaeda as early as possible, not timing it to the most politically opportune moment. By putting his political campaign before the fight against the al-Qaeda terrorists, Bush is hurting U.S. national security for his own personal gain.

Product Placement

This is what happens when you show advertisements based on keywords in the article:

To be immortalized in the upcoming Hollywood flick "Oh, God! You Don'texist"

This might surprise some foreign readers, but many goverment functions in the United States begin with official prayer sessions despite the widespread belief that government sponsorship of certain religions oppresses other religions that are not so sponsored. I'm not talking about just the Pledge of Allegiance, but full-blown prayers right out of a Sunday sermon. In some enlightened communities, particularly those with large minority faiths, people attempt to have it both ways by making the government's religious functions open to all religions.

And so it was that a Jewish member of Tampa's City Council, John Dingfelder, invited an Atheist, Michael R. Harvey, to perform the opening ceremony at a City Council meeting. It quickly got nasty as two Council members tried to forbid the Atheist invocation, one saying "We have never had people of an atheist group represent Americans". When the day finally came, three Council members walked out rather than listen to an Atheist invocation. Harvey didn't help matters by giving an invocation invoking the Constitution to disrespect the concept of invocations, and the whole situation left a lot of people angry.