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Reason's Julian Sanchez thinks he's found the guy who was caught on ABC News kicking a protester at the Republican convention, whose identity has been the subject of much speculation on blogs like TalkLeft. But does this kind of thing have the potential to create the Internet's Richard Jewell?
comment posted at 6:27 AM on Sep-17-04

Dan Rather: : "If the documents are not what we were led to believe, I'd like to break that story. Any time I'm wrong, I want to be right out front and say, 'Folks, this is what went wrong and how it went wrong.'" (reg. req.)

Andrew Sullivan: "Memo to Rather: you can't break that story, because someone else in pajamas already did. Check the frequency, Kenneth. You are so far from being out front on this, you are leagues behind in the dust. Have you heard of the Internet? You can find it on that weird machine in your office they call a computer."

Me: Is anyone else astonished as I am at how far CBS seems to have its head up its ass WRT news media in the 21st century?
comment posted at 8:16 PM on Sep-16-04

Why Bush Left Texas Growing evidence suggests that George W. Bush abruptly left his Texas Air National Guard unit in 1972 for substantive reasons pertaining to his inability to continue piloting a fighter jet. A months-long investigation, which includes examination of hundreds of government-released documents, interviews with former Guard members and officials, military experts and Bush associates, points toward the conclusion that Bush's personal behavior was causing alarm among his superior officers and would ultimately lead to his fleeing the state to avoid a physical exam he might have had difficulty passing... If it is demonstrated that profound behavioral problems marred Bush's wartime performance and even cut short his service, it could seriously challenge Bush's essential appeal as a military steward and guardian of societal values. It could also explain the incomplete, contradictory and shifting explanations provided by the Bush camp for the President's striking invisibility from the military during the final two years of his six-year military obligation... There's that elephant in the living room again.
comment posted at 10:19 AM on Sep-15-04

Bush by Numbers Another of the UK newspaper The Independent's feature front pages.
comment posted at 7:10 AM on Sep-3-04

The full text of George W Bush's acceptance speech. I feel less safe now than I was before, but as of this week it looks like he's going to win.
comment posted at 8:07 AM on Sep-3-04
comment posted at 8:13 AM on Sep-3-04

Columbus swift boat vet angry about letter Swift boat veteran Bob Anderson of Columbus is ticked. It bothers him that Sen. John Kerry's swift boat history has become such a political hot potato. But he's even more irritated that his name was included - without his permission - on a letter used to discredit Kerry. "I'm pretty nonpolitical," the 56-year-old Anderson said Tuesday. So, when he found out last week that his name was one of about 300 signed on a letter questioning Kerry's service, he was "flabbergasted."
comment posted at 9:15 AM on Sep-1-04

An Open Letter to Zed. Someday people will realise that the GPL offers no protection from anything, and use a real free software license instead.
comment posted at 3:47 PM on Aug-30-04

Former Texas Lt. Gov. says he helped Bush dodge 'Nam. "I got...I got a young man named George W. Bush into the National Guard when I was the Lt. Governor of Texas, and I'm not necessarily proud of that. But, But I did it, and I got a lot of other people into the National Guard because I thought that's what people should do when you're in office and you helped a lot of rich people. And I walked to the Vietnam Memorial wall the other day and I looked at the names of the people that died in Vietnam, and I became more ashamed of myself than I've ever been because it's the worst thing I did was help a lot of wealthy supporters, and a lot of people who had family names of importance get into the National Guard. And I'm very sorry about that, and I'm ashamed. And I apologize to you, the voters of Texas."
Video available here.
comment posted at 9:14 PM on Aug-27-04

Prosecutor who attacked Kerry admits lying to boss Liar, liar, pants on fire--"Clackamas County prosecutor Alfred French, who called Sen. John Kerry a liar in a political commercial, acknowledged Thursday that he lied to his boss when confronted about an extramarital affair with a colleague. ...
comment posted at 11:45 AM on Aug-27-04

"Innate intelligence has to do with capability and ignorance to do with variables such as educational opportunity and personal diligence. But the conundrum remains. Is intellect important in presidents? If Americans can't solve the question definitively in the matter of John Kerry and George Bush, we damn sure ought to make an educated guess."
comment posted at 9:14 AM on Aug-27-04

John Kerry gets caught mocking the famous Iowa Jima flag raising photograph on the cover of his book. Someone decides to put the entire book online. This is probably very bad news for Kerry.
comment posted at 8:55 AM on Aug-27-04

In other news... Bush’s security detail gallantly protects President from triple amputee. Meanwhile, a local father expresses his opinion of Bush’s foreign policy results in a more illuminating fashion.
comment posted at 7:38 PM on Aug-25-04

Is the CIA tampering with Venezuelan elections? A Venezuelan news organization reports that an email was sent to the world press this afternoon, claiming to be early election results indicating a defeat for outspoken Bush critic Hugo Chavez. The email in question appears to be a fraud, sent from a location in Virginia. There are also reports coming in of phony election results being broadcast on Venezuelan television, and rigged exit polls organized by the very people who supported an unsuccessful coup against Chavez in 2002 -- an organization funded by our government through the National Endowment for Democracy. Your tax dollars at work. Former President Carter reports that the elections are going well, with a huge turnout, but if Chavez wins, will there be an organized effort -- funded by U.S. tax dollars -- to discredit the election anyway?
comment posted at 9:46 PM on Aug-15-04

The anti-Kerry book Unfit for Command is #1 on Amazon. Unfortunately, the book, not even released, has entered the downward spiral of diminished credibility of its authors. The "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" have been found to include a man who changed his story right after Kerry entered the race and another who flat-out retracts his accusations. Meanwhile, another SBVfT member has accused Kerry of not really deserving his Bronze Star because the events leading to it never occured... even though the Veteran recieved a Bronze Star for the same day's events he claims now never happened.
comment posted at 10:09 AM on Aug-9-04

Debunking the 59 Deceits vs Fifty-nine Deceits in Fahrenheit 9/11.
comment posted at 7:35 AM on Jul-31-04
comment posted at 7:51 AM on Jul-31-04
comment posted at 8:10 AM on Jul-31-04
comment posted at 8:24 AM on Jul-31-04

Orrin Hatch thinks of the children. As a convenient lever for shutting down P2P networks.
comment posted at 4:01 PM on Jun-23-04

Bush Insists on Iraq-Al Qaeda Links Despite Report
Not knowing when to give up and admit that he was wrong, Mr. Bush is digging in his heels and insisting, in spite of the 9/11 commision's findings to the contrary, that Saddam Hussein and Al-Queda are linked.

Said Mr. Bush, "The reason I keep insisting that there was a relationship between Iraq and Saddam and al Qaeda is because there was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda."

I guess that'll be good enough for just under half the population.
comment posted at 2:12 PM on Jun-18-04

Bin Ladin Determined To Strike in US - The Presidential Daily Briefing

Kevin Drum: Aside from that, what really struck me was that the whole thing was so short — considerably shorter than your average op-ed column, in fact — and written at about a high school level. This is an intelligence briefing prepared at the request of the president of the United States and he was apparently satisfied with it? Eleven paragraphs of pabulum considerably less authoritative than an average article in Foreign Affairs ? Sheesh.
comment posted at 7:35 AM on Apr-11-04

The SalmoFan: So long, and thanks for all the fish and animals, and plants... Amidst the catastrophic decline of large ocean fish, Salmon farmers can choose the hue of their "farmed" Salmon with the SalmoFan. [Meanwhile, these same salmon are fed on a factory fishing catch process which effectively strips most large life forms from the ocean.] With 1/4 of all mammmals and 1/2 of all plant species facing extinction, Is the planet truly at a crossroads? Are we losing the extinction battle? .."Overfishing is a global problem. People are taking marine life faster than it can reproduce. The world's catch peaked at 86 million tons in 1989, up fourfold in 50 years.....But many governments, including the United States, Mexico, the European Union, Japan and China, kept on pouring subsidies into commercial fishing fleets to keep them afloat...The Gulf of California in Mexico is not dead, but it is exhausted from overfishing, which has caused every important species of fish there to decline....Crucial fisheries have collapsed worldwide."

Contrast that with This: "[once upon a time there were] cod shoals "so thick by the shore that we hardly have been able to row a boat through them." There were six- and seven-foot-long codfish weighing as much as 200 pounds. There were great banks of oysters as large as shoes. At low tide, children were sent to the shore to collect 10-, 15-, even 20-pound lobsters with hand rakes for use as bait or pig feed. Eight- to 12-foot sturgeon choked New England rivers, and salmon packed streams from the Hudson River to Hudson's Bay. Herring, squid and capelin (a small open-water fish seven inches long) spawning runs were so gigantic they astonished observers for more than four centuries"
comment posted at 10:06 PM on May-27-03

There was a spontaneity about the crowd that contrasted with the sullenness and silences of the Saddam years. Most converged in the centre from all directions and joined throngs marching up and down Ali Abbas and Hussein streets, next to the Shia Muslims' two holiest shrines. Others exercised the right to do nothing, to sit on doorsteps watching people pass, to play or to cook on open fires. They chanted that they had come to celebrate their martyrs in spite of all the efforts by Saddam to persecute their religion. In keeping with Shia tradition, some tore their clothes and cut themselves, drawing blood. Others flogged themselves with chains, to bring themselves closer to the pain of the martyrs.
Iraqi Shiites Show Their Fervor in City They Hold Holy.
U.S. Planners Surprised by Strength of Iraqi Shiites.
Why the Mullahs Love a Revolution.
The war was won as planned.
The peace was not planned quite as meticulously.
A Democratic Iraq May Not Be Friendly to U.S. (More Within)
comment posted at 11:47 PM on Apr-23-03

many of haliburtons subsidiaries pay no taxes as they are ensconsed in offshore tax havens. the vice president is collecting substantial sums in deferred payments, and sizable government contracts are being awared to this company without competition. should we ask our vice-president to encourage his former employer to pay corporate taxes like the most of the rest of americans and american businesses, considering the hefty sums of money being handed them by the american tax payer?
comment posted at 12:45 AM on Apr-15-03
comment posted at 6:20 PM on Apr-15-03

Are you being watched at work on the Web? And how carefully? The good news is that I finally have more than dialup at work. The bad news is that my Internet is filtered, or at least being watched via something called Websense. How common is use of such software these days? Does anyone have experience with this type of software? What information does it log? Can it be defeated?
comment posted at 9:04 PM on Sep-11-02

Oil makes the world go round. The Senate yesterday defeated an effort to increase fuel efficiency standards for cars, sport utility vehicles and pickup trucks by 50 percent over 13 years, voting instead for a measure backed by the auto industry.
comment posted at 8:21 AM on Mar-14-02

Welcome to Fort Bend County, Texas, and the city of Sugar Land, where the congressman is Majority Whip Tom Delay, many of the homes are in the million dollar range, a resident WAS a suicidal Enron executive, and the Chair of the Republican Party is also an Enron spokesman. Oh yes and I almost forgot - The Taliban have been here too. I think I need to move.
comment posted at 10:36 PM on Jan-30-02

"The President" Urges You to Speak Out Against Drilling in the Arctic Refuge Martin Sheen takes advantage of his bully pulpit. "I'm not a president, but I play one on TV."
comment posted at 9:59 AM on Jan-16-02

"For 35 million chickens in the United States alone, every single night is a terrorist attack." In an open letter to the Vegan Voice, Karen Davis, president of United Poultry Concerns, compares the poultry industry to the September 11 tragedy. "I think it is speciesist to think that the September 11 attack on the World Trade Center was a greater tragedy than what millions of chickens endured that day, and what they endure every day because they cannot defend themselves against the concerted human appetites arrayed against them."
comment posted at 12:10 PM on Jan-8-02

Oops. Where did the surplus go? It' fascinating how MSNBC bends over backward to make it sound as if both parties shared blame equally rather then pointing straight at Bush's outrageous tax cut.
comment posted at 10:12 PM on Aug-27-01

Take that, web-standards maniacs! "After Windows XP is launched in October, users will be directed to download a plug-in from Microsoft's Web site (www.microsoft.com) to make Java-based programs work. Without this step, 'any Web page that contains Java applications will not run -- it will be a dead page'" Put that in your "this page viewable in v5.0 browsers or later" crackpipe and smoke it. (Shamelessly swiped from that Other Site...)
comment posted at 11:52 AM on Jul-18-01

Microsoft to cripple MP3 capabilities I don't think anyone has posted this yet; Microsoft's new Windows XP operating system is set up so as to cripple MP3 copying, in order to nudge users into using Windows Media Player format for all their music files. Of course, the latter is a proprietary format with copy protection built in. Not only does the built-in software not copy MP3 files at a higher sampling rate than 56kps, but third-party MP3 software apparently does not work properly. --As usual, this will not stop knowledgeable users from finding workarounds, but the goal is to make unprotected copying too difficult for the average Joe.
comment posted at 2:46 PM on Apr-12-01