FRIDAY FUN

Pumpkin Carving Kit

Sorry, that's all I got today, what with the election and all...

A case for Electoral College reform:

Suppose the EC is tied 269 to 269 and the House deadlocks 25 states to 25 states. This is exceedingly unlikely, but just suppose. Then the Senate gets to choose the vice president. Also suppose the new Senate is divided 50-50, a very real possibility. Then the sitting vice president, Dick Cheney, gets to cast the deciding vote, electing himself as the new vice president. In the absence of a president, Cheney would be acting president for four years. This is not likely to happen because the Republicans are virtually certain of controlling at least 26 state delegations in the House. Still, scenarios like this one support the case for electoral college reform.

"Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing." - - - Redd Foxx

Around for Everyone

Scientists: 100,000 Iraqis have died since war (reg req)

If Kerry loses on Tuesday, the Democrats will have no one to blame but themselves

Pentagon cannot account for 250,000 TONS of weapons and explosives in Iraq

Bin Laden Speaks

U.S. left ammo site unguarded

Prominent Republicans for Kerry/Edwards

Vast amounts of weapons-related material missing

Bush getting very desperate with campaign mailings.

Conservatives for Kerry

A Mistake Was Made 4 Years Ago (video)

War On My Mind

Startling revelations about George W. Bush by autobiographer Mickey Herskowitz (excerpt):

By Russ Baker Two years before 9/11, candidate Bush was already talking privately about attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer. Houston: Two years before the September 11 attacks, presidential candidate George W. Bush was already talking privately about the political benefits of attacking Iraq, according to his former ghost writer, who held many conversations with then-Texas Governor Bush in preparation for a planned autobiography. “He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999,” said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. “It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.” Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father’s shadow. The moment, Herskowitz said, came in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “Suddenly, he’s at 91 percent in the polls, and he’d barely crawled out of the bunker.” That President Bush and his advisers had Iraq on their minds long before weapons inspectors had finished their work – and long before alleged Iraqi ties with terrorists became a central rationale for war – has been raised elsewhere, including in a book based on recollections of former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill. However, Herskowitz was in a unique position to hear Bush’s unguarded and unfiltered views on Iraq, war and other matters – well before he became president....

Exactly who was supposed to be orchestrating the "October Surprises"?

Hey, Ohio! Lookie Here

From CAP:

IRAQ: Cost of the war in Iraq for Ohio taxpayers so far: $5.7 billion. JOBS: The Bush administration projected 151,000 new jobs would be created in Ohio. As of September 2004, the economy had actually lost 18,200 jobs, a 169,200 job shortfall. ENVIRONMENT: According to EPA consultants, "fine particle pollution from power plants shortens the lives of 1,743 Ohioans each year. Ohioans have the fourth highest risk in the country of dying from power plant pollution." The administration, however, has acted in the interests of power plants, ending legal action to force compliance with clean air standards and rolling back clean air standards for the oldest, dirtiest power plants. POVERTY: More Ohioans slipped into poverty last year. According to the Columbus Dispatch, "about one in six children and nearly one in three households in Ohio headed by women were in poverty in 2003, both increases from the previous year." Cleveland was ranked the number one poorest city in the nation, with 31.3 percent of citizens living under the poverty line. HEALTH CARE: The Ohio State Medical Association reports the number of uninsured Ohioans grew to more than 1.3 million in 2003. TAXES: According to Citizens for Tax Justice, "between 2001 and 2006, Ohio taxpayers will receive $35.6 billion in tax cuts – but will face $145.7 billion in added federal debt, for a net added burden of $110.1 billion." And by 2006, 5 million Ohio taxpayers – 89 percent of all state residents – will receive less than $100 in tax cuts. EDUCATION: A report commissioned by the Ohio Department of Education found President Bush's No Child Left Behind Act was underfunded for the Buckeye State. It costs Ohio "$1.4 billion more annually than it gets from the federal government for public education," leaving the cash-strapped state to make up the difference.

It's Time to Vote

Mark Morford looks back on, and looks forward to, the 2004 election (snippet):

....It has become surreal, this election. It has become beyond coherent. We are at a point where our election system has become suspect and deeply flawed and our ideology has come unraveled and we as a nation no longer fully understand our role in the world and the bloom is way, way off the patriotic rose, so much so that it's no longer just a matter of which candidate will put a shinier coat of paint on the massive ship of bureaucracy, but who will stop us from sinking too abruptly into the quicksand of abuse and arrogance and ever increasing irrelevance. Go, U-S-A! So then. As we stare down this uncanny and indelible moment in American history, there are two angles of approach. One: sit back and reflect on how the hell we got here, what bizarre machinations and demonic falling dominos managed to put BushCo in power, just what sort of humiliating and positively satanic chain reaction lo these past 50 years led up to where we are now, to this bitter yet oddly amusing spectacle of a massive and awe-inspiring empire in full crumble. This approach, it is the more depressing and fatalistic and painful of the two and will result in much sighing and the supping of wine and the licking of lovers to deflect the pain and energize the skin and try and put it all in perspective, and is recommended only in small doses. Except for the drinking and licking part. Conversely and perhaps more enjoyably, you can project forward, then reminisce. You can, that is to say, imagine it's a short 20 years hence and it's about 2024 and we're sitting there sipping our laudanum/Vicodin Colas and injecting Nexium straight into our eyeballs and watching our 10-foot plasma-TV walls and looking back and saying my god, 2004, that was a weird one, wasn't it? Remember that ugly time? Remember when that smirking dolt Bush Jr. was president and we went through that dark dank tunnel of spiritual dread and international humiliation and we bombed Iraq for no reason and killed all those people for no reason and gutted our own economy for no reason other than to line the pockets of the Bush WASP mafia's corporate cronies? Wasn't that just so, like, crazy? We will make jokes and shake our heads and sigh. We will say oh man remember that defense guy? Rumsfeld? Remember his black and ominous eyes? His savage abuse of power and complete lack of accountability? Remember that demon-god Ashcroft and his oiled feet, didn't dance and didn't smoke and didn't drink and didn't have sex and wanted to crack down on nipples and scan our e-mail and check our library books and tap our phones? Remember Condi Rice, that lost and desperate look, lonely and sad and a creepy veneer of doomed longing over her soul? Weird times, my friend. Sip. We know that 20 years hence, there will be no Reagan-like legacy for Shrub. There will be no renamed airports or honorary expressways or revisionist rose-colored history books arguing the good and the bad of his epic much-loved presidency, because there is so little good and so very, very much bad and there is absolutely no love anywhere. We already know that history will look very, very unkindly upon this most booblike, lie-torn, appallingly underqualified of American presidents. Of this we can rest assured. Of this we will only look back and be incredibly grateful it didn't last all that long. This angle, it is the moderately healing and perspective-adjusting one. It's comfortable and helpful to project in such a manner, especially given how it's almost too hot right now, just too frustrating and painful to remain in this moment, to sit here and wait for the election returns and the potential lawsuits and Supreme Court riggings all the while knowing the GOP is trying everything short of launching another terrorist attack to maintain power and will stop at almost nothing to instill fear and dread and Dick Cheney deeper into the numb American psyche. You cannot stay here. You cannot sit in this moment any longer. You simply have to get out and vote and scream and then roll up this ugly hunk of living history into a tight little ball of hot gelatinous goo and hurl it at the wall of time and see what sticks....

If Bush steals another one, Canada better start hiring more Immigration Department employees.

"Well, at least with regard to this one bunker, and the film shows one seal, one bunker, one group of soldiers going through, and there were others there that were sealed. With this one, I think it is game, set, and match. There was HMX, RDX in there. The seal was broken. And quite frankly, to me the most frightening thing is not only was the seal broken, lock broken, but the soldiers left after opening it up. I mean, to rephrase the so-called pottery barn rule. If you open an arms bunker, you own it. You have to provide security." ---Former Chief Weapons Inspector David Kay

"Strap yourself in, folks... October Surprises are certainly not the sole province of the GOP. But we can bet that a party already working overtime to suppress minority votes, scare voters into thinking Kerry and Democrats are going to legalize gay marriage (oh no!) and ban the Bible, and who already proved once they are willing to break the law to get their man elected, is not going to go down with anything left in their bag of dirty tricks. "By next Tuesday John Kerry will be a gay Communist baby killer whose first act as President will be to give Osama Bin Laden the keys to the White House and nuke St. Patrick's Cathedral." - - - Sean Aday

High-Grade Lying by the Bush Administration

Here's MORE PROOF that Bush was blatantly lying this week about the high-grade explosives not being in Al Qaqaa at the start of his invasion of Iraq. Just an incredible job so far by the Minneapolis/St. Paul channel 5 news team. Here again is the original STORY and accompanying VIDEO of this tragedy about an incompetent U.S. military leadership allowing 760,000 pounds of high-grade explosives to be stolen from under their noses. These materials most likely have subsequently been used (and are still being used) for car bombs and other weapons against American Soldiers and Iraqis by terrorists and insurgents and god knows who else who may have gotten their hands on it. Jeanne at Body and Soul is keeping a constantly updated timeline of events as infomation becomes available.

When the book is written about the Bush Administration, librarians will have to file it under Fiction, because future readers will find it very difficult to believe that it is true.

Around for Everyone

College Republican National Committee steals millions of dollars from senior citizens.

The Katherine Harris rock video.

Possible evidence that explosives were looted after Bush's invasion. Here's the SUPPORTING VIDEO.

Spinsanity slams The Center for American Progress. Ouch.

Just imagine THIS happening in YOUR neighborhood.

Hey, troops: Guess what, it's YOUR FAULT! (Short analysis HERE.)

Bush expresses his true feelings. Source video HERE.

Whatever It Takes.... For Bush To Win

Bush's latest campaign ad, Whatever It Takes, is yet another example of the deception and lying rampant in the GOP over the past 4 years. If you look closely at the scene with the soldiers making up the audience, you can clearly see how the editors of the film photoshopped a handful of soldiers and cloned them repeatedly until they composed a large audience. As Kerry campaign senior adviser Joe Lockhart said today:

"Now we know why this ad is named `Whatever it Takes.' This administration has always had a problem telling the truth from Iraq to jobs to health care. The Bush campaign's advertising has been consistently dishonest in what they say. But today, it's been exposed for being dishonest about what we see. "If they won't tell the truth in an ad, they won't tell the truth about anything else. This doctored commercial is fundamentally dishonest and insults the intelligence of the American people. The Bush campaign has no choice but to take this ad down immediately and issue an apology for its latest attempt to mislead the American people."

Wal-Mart in the News

And it's bad, as usual:

WAL-MART – COMPANY OPPOSES HEALTH INSURANCE FOR WORKERS: Vice President Cheney's favorite company, Wal-Mart, is pulling out all the stops to block Proposition 72 on the California ballot, "a measure that will require employers to provide basic health insurance to workers." Besides spending $500,000 to aid opponents of the measure, AP reports that Wal-Mart is breaking a tradition of trying to stay out of politics by spending more than $2.4 million on California races this fall – "well beyond any previous sum the company has spent here in one year." Wal-Mart's big funding to block Proposition 72 came just one day after TV ads cited a study from a University of California research group estimating "California taxpayers spend $32 million a year providing health care to Wal-Mart workers."

I have never purchased a single item at Wal-Mart in 7 years.

Bush: Not Dumb...

Steve Gilliard contrasts Bush and Kerry (snippet):

....Bush is intelligent, above average actually. But his intellect is not his problem. It is his innate laziness and contempt for logic and contemplation which shines through. Toss on an alcohol addiction and a dysfunctional family where lying was standard operating procedure, and you have one sick puppy. Even if he never took a drink, his temperament and deep anger would shine through. John Kerry, as he so clearly proved in the first debate, is the kind of man we should have as president. George Bush is not and never has been a serious man. His anger at his father and his mother's explosive temper, along with a lack of any sort of self-criticism or examination preclude that. Kerry is not the guy to pat you on the back and leer at a pretty girl, that was our last Democratic president. Kerry is the serious guy who you can count on when things get tight. He's going to stand by you without checking. With Bill Clinton, he always had an eye out for himself, even when he was swearing undying loyalty to you. Kerry's word may not come easy, but when he gives it, he means it....

Bush Praises Democrats

"The Democrat Party has also a great tradition of defending the defenseless." "The Democratic Party has a great tradition of leading this country with strength and conviction in times of war." "The Democratic party has a tradition for support of our public schools."

John Kerry? Nope.... George W. Bush!

"Give Me Liberty" now a distant & fondly-remembered phrase

Dan Gillmor, always with an eye to the tech industry, discusses our ever-shrinking cache of liberties:

Personal liberty has suffered under Bush's administration By Dan Gillmor - Mercury News Technology Columnist If you believe that political and social liberty go hand in hand with economic freedom -- and that they form an underpinning of a vibrant free market -- you should be worried about another four years like the four we've just had. Let's grant that George W. Bush plainly believes in a free market, largely unconstrained by government intervention. But he has made it clear that he doesn't have the same devotion to other kinds of liberty. He and his allies have used terrorism to launch a massive assault on civil liberties. They are not just indifferent to liberty, they are actively hostile to it. Bush's first term has been a catalog of encroachments. He has expanded surveillance -- electronic and otherwise -- without adequate safeguards. He has had a mania for secrecy, shielding more and more government information from public view. This amounts to telling Americans they have no right in many cases to know how our money is being used or what government is doing in our names. This president has curbed dissent through intimidation. His attorney general practically labeled as traitors people who questioned the outrageously named ``Patriot Act,'' for example. More recently, the Bush forces have excluded anyone who is not a declared supporter from being even in the vicinity of campaign events, and have even fenced off protesters in Orwellian ``free speech zones'' far from the scenes. The Bush years have emboldened rights and privacy invaders everywhere. A national ID card is making a back-door entrance via a scheme by the state agencies that issue driver's licenses, for example. He has given corporate interests carte blanche to buy, sell, massage and trade our most personal information -- mocking his vows in the 2000 campaign to be a president who would protect privacy. The federal government now encourages (and buys) all kinds of data collection and ways to manipulate it, and offers barely a hint of safeguards. Do you imagine for even a second that the radio-chip ID implants being sold to track patients inside hospitals won't be used for much broader kinds of surveillance someday? Ditto the radio tags the government says it wants to put into our passports (and soon, no doubt, our driver's licenses). Surveillance is big business now. Insidiously, the Bush administration has turned the corporate data mongers into partners in the dawning surveillance state. Evading even the most trivial safeguards, including federal laws protecting privacy, it buys or uses data collected by private companies that are under no such restrictions. An intrusive airline passenger screening system, relying on commercial data and other information, was officially scrapped after protests. But as the Washington Post reported earlier this month, one of the former government officials behind that project has launched a private company that will collect and provide data for the project's new incarnation -- and established the company offshore in Bermuda, ``outside the reach of U.S. regulators.'' The most frightening assault on liberty has had nothing to do with the Patriot Act, surveillance or privacy. Bush has systematically ignored the law when it suited his purpose, treating the Constitution as a suggestion box, not the bedrock of liberty. He asserted the right to declare American citizens as enemy combatants here at home and to jail them indefinitely, with no right even to see a lawyer. The Supreme Court, thankfully, rejected Bush's dictatorial views in two pivotal decisions earlier this year. But presidents nominate justices, and this one means to nominate the kind who will let the government do pretty much what it pleases. Early last week, William Rehnquist, chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, had surgery for thyroid cancer. His condition reminded people that whoever is president during the next four years will probably nominate three or four justices to the highest court. A court with two, three or four judges of Bush's preference would not be friendly, on balance, to our rights as individuals. The president has made clear his intention to appoint judges who would overturn abortion rights. That, too, is a question of liberty. Is John Kerry any better? He voted for the ``Patriot'' law, after all. But while Bush vows to expand that law's reach over our lives, Kerry has said he would work to repeal some of the more odious provisions, such as the one that lets government agents rifle through our lives -- including what library books we read -- with few safeguards. I believe that a free economy rests in large part on people's willingness to feel free -- to take chances, to be different from others. The surveillance state is a conformist state, where a fog of fear deadens initiative and the willingness to take risks. No sane person wants to make law enforcement impotent. But risk is part of a free culture, and the more we clamp down on things that have any element of risk the more we clamp down on freedom itself.

Another Kerry Endorsement?

Bush-appointed Allawi endorses Kerry?

THE ALLAWI ENDORSEMENT?....For some reason, the Iraqi government decided just two weeks ago to finally come clean and tell the IAEA — which in 2003 had warned that "terrorists might be helping 'themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history'" — that 380 tons of high explosives had gone missing. This weekend the Iraqi minister of science and technology confirmed the story. Then, today, Iraq's interim prime minister, Ayad Allawi, said that the recent massacre of 49 Iraqi National Guard recruits was due to the "gross negligence" of foreign troops — i.e., Americans. Am I the only one wondering why the Iraqi government suddenly seems to be so eager to release information that's obviously harmful to George Bush's reelection prospects? Has Ayad Allawi had a sudden change of heart about who he'd like to see in the White House next year?

Well, that's about as believable as this one:

I am a senior citizen. During the Clinton Administration I had an extremely good and well paying job. I took numerous vacations and had several vacation homes. Since President Bush took office, I have watched my entire life change for the worse. I lost my job. I lost my two sons in that terrible Iraqi War. I lost my homes. I lost my health insurance. As a matter of fact I lost virtually everything and became homeless. Adding insult to injury, when the authorities found me living like an animal, instead of helping me, they arrested me. I will do anything that Senator Kerry wants to insure that a Democrat is back in the White House come next year. Bush has to go. Sincerely, Saddam Hussein

Look for one last terror alert this weekend.

Steve Soto sez:

Here’s your evidence why you may see an increased terror threat warning this weekend: a Cornell sociologist has statistical evidence that Bush’s approval rating goes up nearly 3 points every time the threat level is raised. Although the increase is temporary, it would sure do the trick for Tuesday.

Maybe they'll find an elementary schoolbook in Iraq with a photo of the White House on a page that is dog-eared. Yep, that's worth an elevated terror warning.

Around for Everyone

Wow. Very effective GOTV music video. Read about it HERE.

Peak Oil Is Just Around the Corner

Didn't know I was UnAmerican. (video: click "Launch Movie")

Senator Mary Landrieu rocks! (video)

Bush Relatives for Kerry.

Sorry, Ohio... Florida may upstage you yet

A secret document obtained from inside Bush campaign headquarters in Florida suggests a plan - possibly in violation of US law - to disrupt voting in the state’s African-American voting districts, a BBC Newsnight investigation reveals.

BBC Television News On-Line - Tuesday, October 26, 2004 - Greg Palast, reporting (Watch it tonight at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/newsnight/default.stm begining at 5.30pm EST, available for 24 hours.) Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign’s national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called “caging list”. It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida. An elections supervisor in Tallahassee, when shown the list, told Newsnight: “The only possible reason why they would keep such a thing is to challenge voters on election day.” Ion Sancho, a Democrat, noted that Florida law allows political party operatives inside polling stations to stop voters from obtaining a ballot. ---Mass challenges--- They may then only vote “provisionally” after signing an affidavit attesting to their legal voting status. Mass challenges have never occurred in Florida. Indeed, says Mr Sancho, not one challenge has been made to a voter “in the 16 years I’ve been supervisor of elections.” “Quite frankly, this process can be used to slow down the voting process and cause chaos on election day; and discourage voters from voting.” Sancho calls it “intimidation.” And it may be illegal. In Washington, well-known civil rights attorney, Ralph Neas, noted that US federal law prohibits targeting challenges to voters, even if there is a basis for the challenge, if race is a factor in targeting the voters. The list of Jacksonville voters covers an area with a majority of black residents. When asked by Newsnight for an explanation of the list, Republican spokespersons claim the list merely records returned mail from either fundraising solicitations or returned letters sent to newly registered voters to verify their addresses for purposes of mailing campaign literature. Republican state campaign spokeswoman Mindy Tucker Fletcher stated the list was not put together “in order to create” a challenge list, but refused to say it would not be used in that manner. Rather, she did acknowledge that the party’s poll workers will be instructed to challenge voters, “Where it’s stated in the law.” There was no explanation as to why such clerical matters would be sent to top officials of the Bush campaign in Florida and Washington. ---Private detective--- In Jacksonville, to determine if Republicans were using the lists or other means of intimidating voters, we filmed a private detective filming every “early voter” - the majority of whom are black - from behind a vehicle with blacked-out windows. The private detective claimed not to know who was paying for his all-day services. On the scene, Democratic Congresswoman Corinne Brown said the surveillance operation was part of a campaign of intimidation tactics used by the Republican Party to intimate and scare off African American voters, almost all of whom are registered Democrats. Greg Palast reporting. The film will be broadcast by Newsnight tonight, Tuesday, 26 October, 2004 at 2230 BST (6:30pm New York time).

OHIO: the Buckeye Black Eye State

From NDOL:

....Based on scattered and largely anecdotal reports of improper registrations in minority neighborhoods, the Ohio GOP, exploiting an obscure 1953 law, has already challenged 35,000 new voters in heavily Democratic areas, forcing already overwhelmed election officials to hold hearings on each challenge (ironically, given the Bush-Cheney campaign's efforts to convince voters that re-electing the president is essential for the morale of our troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, these challenges appear to disproportionately affect active duty personnel overseas). But the real Ohio outrage may occur on November 2 itself, when the GOP plans to send "volunteers" (reportedly being paid $100 for their time) into 8,000 (largely Democratic) precincts with instructions to challenge as many voters as possible. You don't have to be partisan or paranoid to suspect the aim is less about detecting ineligible voters than about making the experience of voting as slow and unpleasant as possible. That's "voter intimidation" by any definition. It's all the more egregious because Republicans have already won a decision from the courts in Ohio and in Florida as well that the "provisional" ballots that HAVA requires for challenged voters can be thrown out by election officials if they turn out to be cast in the wrong precinct -- a technical violation of election laws at worst....

So, pull up an easy chair this November 2 evening and watch the circus unfold before your eyes. And get ready as the circus evolves into a revolution if Bush steals another one. If there's a revolt coming, I'm going, so I hope there are restrooms there.

Bush on hands and knees, looking under table: "Nope, no weapons over there..."

From the Daily Misleader:

In Iraq, 380 tons of powerful explosives have been looted and may have fallen into the hands of insurgents. In an effort to deflect blame, administration officials are pushing the theory that when "U.S. forces...reached the Al Qaqaa military facility in early April 2003, the weapons cache was already gone." This theory is not credible. According to an AP report, U.S. solders visited the Al Qaqaa in April 2003 and "found thousands of five-centimetre by 12-centimetre boxes, each containing three vials of white powder." Officials who tested the powder said it was "believed to be explosives." Yesterday, "an official who monitors developments in Iraq" confirmed that "US-led coalition troops had searched Al Qaqaa in the immediate aftermath of the March 2003 invasion and confirmed that the explosives, which had been under IAEA seal since 1991, were intact." Thereafter, according to the official, "the site was not secured by U.S. forces." It makes sense that the explosives were there when the U.S. solders arrived because, as the LA Times notes, "given the size of the missing cache, it would have been difficult to relocate undetected before the invasion, when U.S. spy satellites were monitoring activity."

References available at the Misleader site.

Iraq's cost to California

In my state (California) the Iraq War has cost $19.5 Billion so far, or $550 per resident. If, instead of invading Iraq, the Bush Administration had given this money directly to the state, we Californians would not only have no budget deficit, we would have lower college tuition, more teachers, better government funding/reimbursement for healthcare, better-repaired highways, and fewer dead residents (killed in Iraq).

Trans Fats Proven Bad for People in Mazes

Trans fat is linked to weak intellect (snippet):

Research on mice points to role of diet in memory; Type of fat common in fast food By David Kohn - Sun Staff - Originally published October 26, 2004 SAN DIEGO - As if eating badly and being overweight weren't already harmful enough, research announced yesterday suggests that consuming too much of several kinds of fat can damage memory and intellect. With about a third of the U.S. population either overweight or obese, the results could have broad significance for the national IQ. "We are in the midst of an obesity epidemic in the United States," said Dr. Barry Levin, of the VA Medical Center in East Orange, N.J. "These studies show that diets high in fat are a risk factor for not only heart disease, hypertension, and diabetes, but for cognitive decline as well." All of the studies, which were announced at the annual conference of the Society for Neuroscience, involved animals. But scientists agreed that the results almost certainly applied to humans as well. "After I did this study, I didn't eat french fries anymore," said neuroscientist Lotta Granholm, who found that trans fats - the sort found in many fast foods - impaired memory and learning in middle-age rats. Many recent studies have linked trans fat to heart disease and cancer, but Granholm's research is the first to connect it to problems with learning and memory. "It's an important study. There's a real impact on the brain," said University of South Florida-Tampa neuroscientist Paula Bickford, an expert on the how food affects cognition. Last year, Granholm fed one group of rats a diet that contained 10 percent hydrogenated coconut oil, a common trans fat. She gave another group the same diet, but replaced the coconut oil with soybean oil, which is not a trans fat. After six weeks, the animals were tested in a series of mazes. The coconut oil group made far more errors, especially on the tests that required more mental energy. "The trans fats made memory significantly worse," said Granholm, who is director of the Center On Aging at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. The quantity of trans fat fed to the rats was equivalent to amounts consumed by many Americans. "It was not more than what people would eat," said Granholm, who also noted that the rats in her study were not overweight. This indicates that the cognitive problems were not related to obesity, but to consumption of trans fat. "You don't have to be overweight to be affected by this," she said. ....Over the past two decades, trans fat has become ubiquitous in this country. It's used in many crackers, cookies, doughnuts, cakes and breads, as well as many fast foods, which are often fried in partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, a common trans fat. The fats, which are made by adding hydrogen to vegetable oil under high pressure, appeal to manufacturers and restaurants because they extend shelf life and remain solid at room temperature, as saturated fats do. In response to recent research, and efforts by consumer groups, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration earlier this year decided that starting in 2006, products that contain trans fats must say so on the label. Granholm said trans fat seems to produce its effect on the brain by destroying proteins that help neurons send and receive signals. In animals that ate coconut oil, these molecules, known as microtubule-associated proteins, were much less common. Granholm suspects that trans fat increases inflammation in the brain, which damages the proteins....

8 days to go

So, have you caught yourself lately mentally holding your breath, praying that there is no terrorist attack in the U.S. between now and November 3? Have you caught yourself wondering if it's time to move to Canada, or Australia or New Zealand if Bush steals another 4 years? Have you caught yourself thnking how you are going to arrange time off from work in order to travel to Washington DC and join the other millions of Americans who will riot revolt after the election if Bush rips another from the jaws of defeat?

Civil War? Count Me In.

The conclusion of John Dean's excellent analysis of the outcome of the 2004 election:

....It may be days or weeks, if not months, before we know the final results of this presidential election. And given the Republican control of the government, if Karl Rove is on the losing side, it could be years: He will take every issue (if he is losing) to its ultimate appeal in every state he can. The cost of such litigation will be great - with the capital of citizens' trust in their government, and its election processes, sinking along with the nation's (if not the world's) financial markets, which loathe uncertainty. After Bush v. Gore, is there any doubt how the high Court would resolve another round? This time, though, the Court, too, will pay more dearly. With persuasive power as its only source of authority, the Court's power will diminish as the American people's cynicism skyrockets. It does not seem to trouble either Rove or Bush that they are moving us toward a Twenty-first Century civil war -- and that, once again, Southern conservatism is at its core. Only a miracle, it strikes me, can prevent this election from descending into post-election chaos. But given the alternatives, a miracle is what I am hoping for.

More on the Moron

Statement released today:

“Today, the Bush administration must answer for what may be the most grave and catastrophic mistake in a tragic series of blunders in Iraq. How did they fail to secure nearly 380 tons of known, deadly explosives despite clear warnings from the International Atomic Energy Agency to do so? And why was this information unearthed by reporters -- and was it covered up by our national security officials? “These explosives can be used to blow up airplanes, level buildings, attack our troops and detonate nuclear weapons. The Bush administration knew where this stockpile was, but took no action to secure the site. They were urgently and specifically informed that terrorists could be helping themselves to the most dangerous explosives bonanza in history, but nothing was done to prevent it from happening. “This material was monitored and controlled by UN inspectors before the invasion of Iraq. Thanks to the stunning incompetence of the Bush administration, we now have no idea where it is. “We need to know what the administration knew about this and when. We need to know why they failed to safeguard these explosives and keep them out of the hands of our enemies. The National Security Advisor should be at her desk in Washington tomorrow to work this problem and answer these questions, instead of giving speeches in battleground states.” ---Joe Lockart, Kerry-Edwards Senior Advisor

Probably not the October Surprise Rove was planning. I wonder how many thousands of people are going to get killed over the next several years as a result of these explosives getting sold and used all over the world? I wonder if one will be used in a school or church or department store or hospital or retirement home or train station or hotel or freeway overpass or soccer stadium or airport or....

I would like any Republican reading this blog to tell me again why they support Bush and his job performance. And don't give me that "he created this mess so it's his responsibility to get us out of it" crap that many stupid liberals are spouting today. If Bush was one of your mid-management employees and he fired or suspended employees without a fair hearing, or put your company into bankruptcy-ready debt, or took under-the-table payments from vendors, or took 5 months of vacation each year, or repeatedly lied to fellow employees about his work production, or slandered other companies in the same business, are you telling me that you would not hesitate to renew his employment contract??

This Year's Florida Election Poised to Make 2000 Seem Like a Cakewalk

Andrew Gumbel of the Independent thinks things aren't going quite hunky-dory in Florida.... again (snippet):

....In Florida, Secretary of State Glenda Hood has been repeatedly accused of doing the political bidding of the man who appointed her - Governor Jeb Bush, the President's brother. Her more recent exploits include directing county supervisors to throw out registration forms where applicants have signed a statement declaring they are US citizens but have forgotten to check a citizenry box elsewhere on the form. This, too, is seen as a vote-suppressing mechanism. It, too, is now in the courts. Secretary Hood has also been waging a months-long campaign to ban what limited manual recounts the electronic voting machines permit. Her initial ruling was struck down by the courts, but now she has come up with a staggeringly devious rewrite. The state will now permit analysis of the computerized machines' internal audit logs in the event of a close race, she said, but if there is any discrepancy the county supervisors are to go with the original count. In other words: we will do recounts, but if the recounts change the outcome we will disregard them. Secretary Hood's actions illuminate the real attraction of the electronic voting machines in the states where they have been introduced. They may work no better than the old punch-card machines - studies suggest they fail to record as many votes as their predecessors. In the absence of an independent paper trail, how- ever, all evidence of problems is hidden away in the binary code of an electronic black box and is, to all intents and purposes, invisible. This raises intriguing and troubling questions about what a post-election contest might look like. One can reasonably anticipate - based on past experience - an avalanche of stories about voters turned away from polling stations, told they are on a felons list even if they have no criminal record, or kept waiting for hours because of technical glitches. No doubt people will tell some of those thousands of lawyers how they pressed the screen for one candidate, only to have the other's name light up. The problem is, even if lawyers for the losing candidate are able to prove that the system failed, they will find it very difficult to talk specific numbers and demonstrate that enough votes were lost to alter the outcome. How the courts will react to this hypothetical state of affairs is anybody's guess. They could accept the given election results, however flawed. They could allow the arguments to rage until December, when the electoral college is supposed to meet, or even into the new year, when an undecided election would be thrown into the House of Representatives. Or they could be trumped, once again, by the Supreme Court. The most disconcerting possibility is that the highest court in the land could remove the electoral process from the voters altogether and turn it over to the state legislatures. Technically, they can do this under Article II of the Constitution, which offers no automatic right to vote. We know from the deliberations in 2000 that two, possibly five, of the nine justices have doubts whether the people should be the ultimate arbiters of presidential elections - a strict, literal reading of the Constitution that no modern Supreme Court countenanced before the current crop of ultra-conservatives. "After granting the franchise in the special context of Article II," the majority declared in its Bush vs Gore ruling, "[the state] can take back the power to appoint electors." Were this scenario to play out it would leave the fate of many of the electoral battlegrounds in the hands of Republican-controlled state legislatures (in Florida and Ohio, for starters), who would promptly hand the election to George Bush....

The ONLY way Kerry has a chance of defeating the Republican-led massive voter fraud and disenfranchisement sweeping this nation is with a landslide victory. Anything less will get nitpicked, litigated and stolen until there is nothing left but a slimy carcass of a burnt-out election that will fill the gutters of democracy with the repulsive, vomitous excrement from the Satan-spawned merchants of the Republican ultra-right-wing. (Oops, sorry, got a little carried away there...)

Around for Everyone

That's a lie. You're a liar. You're lying. Lie, lie, lie. (video)

Retards in the Pentagon (EDO video)

Bush Campaign Headed Toward the Wolves (BC04 campaign video) Are they serious?!

One of the biggest stories of the Iraq war

Boy did the Bush Administration fuck up here...

Huge Cache of Explosives Vanished From Site in Iraq By JAMES GLANZ, WILLIAM J. BROAD and DAVID E. SANGER BAGHDAD, Iraq, Oct. 24 - The Iraqi interim government has warned the United States and international nuclear inspectors that nearly 380 tons of powerful conventional explosives - used to demolish buildings, produce missile warheads and detonate nuclear weapons - are missing from one of Iraq's most sensitive former military installations. The huge facility, called Al Qaqaa, was supposed to be under American military control but is now a no-man's land, still picked over by looters as recently as Sunday. United Nations weapons inspectors had monitored the explosives for many years, but White House and Pentagon officials acknowledge that the explosives vanished after the American invasion last year. The White House said President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was informed within the past month that the explosives were missing. It is unclear whether President Bush was informed. American officials have never publicly announced the disappearance, but beginning last week they answered questions about it posed by The New York Times and the CBS News program "60 Minutes." Administration officials said yesterday that the Iraq Survey Group, the C.I.A. task force that searched for unconventional weapons, has been ordered to investigate the disappearance of the explosives. American weapons experts say their immediate concern is that the explosives could be used in major bombing attacks against American or Iraqi forces: the explosives, mainly HMX and RDX, could be used to produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings. The bomb that brought down Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 used less than a pound of the material of the type stolen from Al Qaqaa, and somewhat larger amounts were apparently used in the bombing of a housing complex in November 2003 in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and the blasts in a Moscow apartment complex in September 1999 that killed nearly 300 people. The explosives could also be used to trigger a nuclear weapon, which was why international nuclear inspectors had kept a watch on the material, and even sealed and locked some of it. But the other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain. "This is a high explosives risk, but not necessarily a proliferation risk," one senior Bush administration official said. The International Atomic Energy Agency publicly warned about the danger of these explosives before the war, and after the invasion it specifically told United States officials about the need to keep the explosives secured, European diplomats said in interviews last week. Administration officials say they cannot explain why the explosives were not safeguarded, beyond the fact that the occupation force was overwhelmed by the amount of munitions they found throughout the country. The Qaqaa facility, about 30 miles south of Baghdad, was well known to American intelligence officials: Saddam Hussein made conventional warheads at the site, and the I.A.E.A. dismantled parts of his nuclear program there in the early 1990's after the Persian Gulf war in 1991. In the prelude to the 2003 invasion, Mr. Bush cited a number of other "dual use" items - including tubes that the administration contended could be converted to use for the nuclear program - as a justification for invading Iraq. After the invasion, when widespread looting began in Iraq, the international weapons experts grew concerned that the Qaqaa stockpile could fall into unfriendly hands. In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history." In an interview with The Times and CBS in Baghdad, the minister of science and technology, Rashad M. Omar, confirmed the facts described in the letter. "Yes, they are missing," Dr. Omar said. "We don't know what happened." The I.A.E.A. says it also does not know, and has reported that machines tools that can be used for either nuclear or non-nuclear purposes have also been looted. Dr. Omar said that after the American-led invasion, the sites containing the explosives were under the control of the Coalition Provisional Authority, an American-led entity that was the highest civilian authority in Iraq until it handed sovereignty of the country over to the interim government on June 28. "After the collapse of the regime, our liberation, everything was under the coalition forces, under their control," Dr. Omar said. "So probably they can answer this question, what happened to the materials." Officials in Washington said they had no answers to that question. One senior official noted that the Qaqaa complex where the explosives HMX and RDX were stored was listed as a "medium priority" site on the Central Intelligence Agency's list of more than 500 sites that needed to be searched and secured during the invasion. In the chaos that followed the invasion, many of those sites, even some considered a higher priority, were never secured. "Should we have gone there? Definitely," said one senior administration official. "But there are a lot of things we should have done, and didn't." .... An Inspector's Warning A European diplomat reported that Jacques Baute, head of the I.A.E.A.'s Iraq nuclear inspection team, warned officials at the United States mission in Vienna about the danger of the nuclear sites and materials once under I.A.E.A. supervision, including Al Qaqaa. But apparently, little was done. A senior Bush administration official said that during the initial race to Baghdad, American forces "went through the bunkers, but saw no materials bearing the I.A.E.A. seal." It is unclear whether they ever returned. By late 2003, diplomats said, I.A.E.A. experts had obtained commercial satellite photos of Al Qaqaa showing that two of roughly 10 bunkers that contained HMX appeared to have been leveled by titanic blasts, apparently during the war. They presumed some of the HMX had exploded, but that is unclear. Other HMX bunkers were untouched. Some were damaged but not devastated. I.A.E.A. experts say they assume that just before the invasion the Iraqis followed their standard practice of moving crucial explosives out of buildings, so they would not be tempting targets. If so, the experts say, the Iraqi must have broken I.A.E.A. seals on bunker doors and moved most of the HMX to nearby fields, where it would have been lightly camouflaged - and ripe for looting. But the Bush administration would not allow the agency back into the country to verify the status of the stockpile. In May 2004, Iraqi officials say in interviews, they warned L. Paul Bremer III, the American head of the occupation authority, that Al Qaqaa had probably been looted. It is unclear if that warning was passed anywhere. Efforts to reach Mr. Bremer by telephone were unsuccessful. But by that time, the Americans were preoccupied with the transfer of authority to Iraq, and the insurgency was gaining strength. "It's not an excuse," said one senior administration official. "But a lot of things went by the boards." Early this month, Dr. ElBaradei put public pressure on the interim Iraqi government to start the process of accounting for nuclear-related materials still ostensibly under I.A.E.A. supervision, including the Al Qaqaa stockpile. "Iraq is obliged," he wrote to the president of the Security Council on Oct. 1, "to declare semiannually changes that have occurred or are foreseen." The agency, Dr. ElBaradei added pointedly, "has received no such notifications or declarations from any state since the agency's inspectors were withdrawn from Iraq in March 2003." Two weeks ago, on Oct. 10, Dr. Mohammed J. Abbas of the Iraqi Ministry of Science and Technology wrote a letter to the I.A.E.A. to say that the Qaqaa stockpile had been lost . He added that his ministry judged that an "urgent updating of the registered materials is required." A chart in his letter listed 341.7 metric tons, about 377 American tons, of HMX, RDX and PETN as missing. Five days later, on Oct. 15, European diplomats said, the I.A.E.A. wrote the United States mission in Vienna to forward the Iraqi letter and ask that American authorities inform the international coalition in Iraq of the missing explosives. Dr. ElBaradei, a European diplomat said, is "extremely concerned" about the potentially "devastating consequences" of the vanished stockpile. Its fate remains unknown. Glenn Earhart, manager of an Army Corps of Engineers program in Huntsville, Ala., that is in charge of rounding up and destroying lost Iraqi munitions, said he and his colleagues knew nothing of the whereabouts of the Qaqaa stockpile. Administration officials say Iraq was awash in munitions, including other stockpiles of exotic explosives. "The only reason this stockpile was under seal," said one senior administration official, "is because it was located at Al Qaqaa," where nuclear work had gone on years ago.

Castro's Fall: NOT FUNNY

I am a big fan of The Daily Show. Very Big. Thursday night during the closing sequence they showed a news clip of Fidel Castro's fall that resulted in a broken arm and leg. Since it was sandwiched between two funny scenes, it came off as humorous, when in fact it was not funny at all. I am disappointed at the producers of the show for allowing something as distasteful as this on the air. Normally TDS is nothing but a class act.

UPDATE: Last night Saturday Night Live also showed the same clip, this time associated with Castro "getting shot" by John Kerry. Still, NOT FUNNY. I don't get it.

Gaysbian Politics

Katha Pollitt on Kerry's mention of Cheney's lesbian daughter (snippet):

....Thus are positions reversed: Kerry, the gay-friendly candidate, becomes the victimizer of innocent daughters, and Bush, who supports a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and who relies on homophobia to excite his fundamentalist base, becomes the generous protector. But if there's nothing immoral about being gay, and if Mary Cheney has herself made her sexual orientation public, what did Kerry do that was so monstrous? Here's what I find offensive: Kristol and William Safire comparing Kerry to Joseph McCarthy. Republicans, Safire writes, "have in mind a TV spot using an old film clip of a Boston lawyer named Welch at a Congressional hearing, saying 'Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?'" Who knew Safire, that old Nixonian, held McCarthy in such low esteem! Let's see: McCarthy destroyed lives with dubious accusations of secret Communist affiliations, something he regarded as evil. Kerry mentioned Mary Cheney's sexual orientation, which is a fact, is not a secret and is not a bad thing in Kerry's eyes. The analogy only makes sense if Kristol and Safire think homosexuality is as bad as communism--or communism is not as bad as they thought. The Mary Cheney gaffe is a bit like Paul Wellstone's memorial service, or for that matter the "Dean scream"--a blip, a nothing, a wisp that the Republican wind machine wants to whip into a tornado of hysterical outrage. And because so much of the media are frivolous and lazy, it can. The tactic doesn't work for long--don't you feel silly now, Minnesotans, for voting Republican because of a eulogy? and does anyone today think Howard Dean is crazy?--but it doesn't need to. It only needs to push the right buttons--propriety, prurience, politeness--for a few crucial days. Every minute people are focusing on what John Kerry said about Mary Cheney is a minute they're not talking about Iraq, or Guantánamo, that swamp of injustice and torture, or the plain basic fact that Bush, who lost the popular vote, has used his four years in the White House to turn the country over to lobbyists, ideologues and charlatans. It's a minute they're looking at Kerry's character and not at Bush's. It means they're not demanding action on the mushrooming scandal of pro-Bush vote suppression and fraud, and not just in Florida either--the intimidation of black voters, the trashing of Democratic registration forms by GOP-contracted firms and their rejection by state authorities on flimsy pretexts, those paperless electronic voting machines. (Penny Venetis and Frank Askin of the Rutgers Constitutional Litigation Clinic just filed a magnificent brief challenging the use of such machines in New Jersey.) Finally, as Richard Kim points out on www.thenation.com, defending Mary Cheney lets Republicans look concerned for a gay person while preserving their basic homophobic agenda....

I'm still at a loss trying to understand why any middle-class, non-fundagelical gay man or woman would even consider voting for Bush. If you are one, please explain...

All the busy-body “Christian” people—when they’re not preparing for the Rapture—are trying to make gay people miserable. I don’t see why our lives affect theirs in the least. They point to us as evidence of Satan in the world. Don’t they realize that Satan is intolerance, that every time they practice injustice, another demon gets his wings? The Pope recently castigated the media for making gays look normal. Yeah, he’s a real good judge of normal. With the gold dress, and the matching gold hat, living up in the Vatican with 500 men, surrounded by the finest antiques in the world. You go, girl! But it is the religious right who are fucking scary, because they’re out of control. Even the Satanists are saying, “Wow, you guys are being really mean.”

----Margaret Cho

Exposing Misleading Campaign Mailings

FactCheck.org needs your help. We are looking for examples of false or misleading political mail regarding the presidential campaign. If you receive any, please send them to us. We promise not to use your name without your permission, but we won't be able to return the material you send. Please do include your name and a telephone number or email address where we might contact you in case we have questions. The kind of mail we are looking for might be sent by the campaigns, or political parties, or independent groups. Typically these mailings are targeted to specific groups -- such as older voters, minority groups or gun owners, for example. Since the messages aren't intended for a general audience and are seldom seen by political reporters, those who send them sometimes take more liberties with the facts than they would in TV or radio advertising that is seen and heard by everybody. With your help, we hope to shed some new light on this sort of tactic and hold politicians accountable for any deceptions we can uncover. Brooks Jackson FactCheck.org 320 National Press Building Washington, DC 20045

Bin Laden? Been Hidin'.

Steve Gilliard on why we probably won't be seeing OBL any time soon:

...While people have expected Bin Laden to be captured for the election, the reality is that the longer Bin Laden is hidden, the harder he is to find. He's no Pablo Escobar, surround by fear, people LOVE Bin Laden, he's a fucking rock star, the John Lennon of terrorism. In the hills of Pakistan, no one is going to rat him out any more than most people wouldn't get high with the Beatles. Bin Laden is the great Islamic hero to the people in the Hindu Kush. There is no law there, has never been, not under the British and not now. Expecting the military to solve this is ridiculous. Also, there is no penalty for helping Bin Laden. The Pakistani Army cannot massacre the Pathan tribesmen. Because they all have guns, unlike Colombian campesinos who had to fear the death squads as well as the Army. There, they have lots of guns and will use them on the slighest pretext. So even if they know where he is, they have no incentive to turn him in. The only reason is money and that means a visa to the UK or US. They would have their whole family killed otherwise. And why should they help us? What reason have we given them? Revenge? How does it make their lives better? We have to provide a reason beyond hot actresses and Coke to support the US. And Bush hasn't created one. The US could have supported Islamic culture and employment for the region, but they didn't and thus, it's Bin Laden, who represents their culture and thinking against the alien US. And it didn't have to be that way.

Ashley? Yes. Kids of Soldiers Killed in Iraq? No.

Bush swore he would never use 9/11 for political gain. Ummm, okay, then what's this?

Flattening Fallujah

Juan Cole predicts the next big military event in Iraq:

Meanwhile, The Scotsman reports on the British government's agreement to deploy 850 British troops in the area southwest of Baghdad. Here's my lay guess as to what this is about: Bush wants to flatten Fallujah as soon as the US elections are over. Flattening Fallujah requires moving another platoon or so to that western city. But that platoon is now tied down fighting the guerrillas in Latifiyah and environs. So the British are being brought in to keep a lid on the insurgency there, so as to free up forces for the assault on Fallujah. Latifiyah is more dangerous than Fallujah, according to one US soldier in a recent interview. So the British are not coming north for a picnic. If my interpretation is correct, it demonstrates how completely overstretched the US military is in Iraq. With over 130,000 troops on the ground, with stop loss orders in effect kidnapping troops far beyond the time they signed up for, the US doesn't have 1,000 troops to spare for a Fallujah campaign. It is completely tied down. So Bush needed Blair once again to save his behind. The British military does not approve, on the whole, of American flattening operations, and declined to be involved in any. So the British brass only acquiesced if they could keep British rules of engagement, which are far less Draconian than US ones. (The US military replies with overwhelming force to an attack, even if doing so would cause indiscriminate harm to civilians.) The British will likely therefore not attack Latifiyah, but will just try to implement their Basra-type brand of community policing, learned in Belfast. The guerrillas in Latifiyah, however, may not cooperate. If the Sunni areas become inflamed by the Bush assault on the city of Fallujah, however, all bets are off, and the guerrillas will target the British troops for suicide bombings and drive-by shootings, in hopes of turning Labour backbenchers decisively against Blair. (Public opinion doesn't matter in a parliamentary system, or Blair would already be out; it just matters that a Prime Minister can survive a vote of no-confidence and that the movers and shakers in his party don't dump him, as happened to Maggie Thatcher). Will Labour put up with American-scale casualties in Iraq, say 25 dead every week or two?

And this is going to happen irrespective of the election results.

Around for Everyone

If you haven't seen THIS AD yet, check it out (WMP format). Apparently it's had a devastating effect on Bush's support in areas it's played. You can contribute HERE to help with additional showings (and see ad in Quicktime).

George Bush's Five-Headed Hydra Base

Americans Mobilizing for Our Schools (check out the video)

Visualize Winning (video)

Wal-Mart bans Jon Stewart's new book.

Denial: The Destructive Consequences of the Suppression of Reality

Program on International Policy Attitudes has released a new survey, comparing the beliefs of Bush and Kerry supporters. Some highlights:

The Separate Realities of Bush and Kerry Supporters ....A large majority of Bush supporters believe that before the war Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or a major program for building them. A substantial majority of Bush supporters assume that most experts believe Iraq had WMD and that this was the conclusion of the recently released report by Charles Duelfer. A large majority of Bush supporters believes that Iraq was providing substantial support to al Qaeda and that clear evidence of this support has been found. A large majority believes that most experts also have this view, and a substantial majority believe that this was the conclusion of the 9/11 Commission. Large majorities of Kerry supporters believe the opposite on all these points.... Large majorities of Bush and Kerry supporters agree that the Bush administration is saying that Iraq had WMD and was providing substantial support to al Qaeda. In regard to WMD, these majorities are growing.... Majorities of Bush supporters and Kerry supporters agree that if Iraq did not have WMD or was not providing support to al Qaeda, the US should not have gone to war with Iraq.... Only three in ten Bush supporters believe that the majority of people in the world oppose the US going to war with Iraq, while an overwhelming majority of Kerry supporters have this view. A majority of Bush supporters assume that the majority of people in the world would like to see Bush reelected, while a large majority of Kerry supporters believe the opposite. Bush supporters also lean toward overestimating support in Islamic countries for US-led efforts to fight terrorism, while Kerry supporters do not .... Majorities of Bush supporters misperceive his positions on a range of foreign policy issues. In particular they assume he supports multilateral approaches and addressing global warming when he has taken strong contrary positions on issues such as the International Criminal court and the Kyoto Agreement. A majority of Kerry supporters have accurate perceptions of Kerry positions on the same issues..... So why do Bush supporters show such a resistance to accepting dissonant information? While it is normal for people to show some resistance, the magnitude of the denial goes beyond the ordinary. Bush supporters have succeeded in suppressing awareness of the findings of a whole series of high- profile reports about prewar Iraq that have been blazoned across the headlines of newspapers and prompted extensive, high-profile and agonizing reflection. The fact that a large portion of Americans say they are unaware that the original reasons that the US took military action--and for which Americans continue to die on a daily basis--are not turning out to be valid, are probably not due to a simple failure to pay attention to the news. The roots of the resistance to this information very likely lie in the traumatic experience of 9/11, and equally in the near pitch-perfect leadership that President Bush showed in its immediate wake. In response to an unprecedented attack on US soil, with the prospect of further such attacks, Bush responded with a grace and resolve that provided reassurance to an anxious public. In the war with the Taliban he showed restraint as well as effectiveness. Large numbers of Americans had a powerful bonding experience with the president--a bond that they may be loath to relinquish. When the president turned his focus to Iraq, this robust public support begin to waver. His case about Iraq’s WMD and support for al Qaeda touched a nerve, but most Americans were not entirely convinced of the imperative to act. Most wanted Bush to first get UN support and allied participation before going into Iraq and were willing to stick with the inspection process for a while longer. Many were very wary of the US getting itself into a position reminiscent of Vietnam, when the world turned against the US. Nonetheless, the majority was still inclined to give Bush the benefit of the doubt and backed him when he decided to go ahead without UN approval. At the same time, though they acquiesced, a majority of Americans did not actively favor taking action at the time Bush did. This was Bush’s war. If all had worked out as advertised, the president’s relation with the public would probably have not missed a beat. While the initial war was easier than the public anticipated, the aftermath was much more difficult and drawn out than originally assumed. Concurrent with these rising costs, the benefits of the war began to be challenged by the failure to find WMD or evidence of Iraqi support for al Qaeda. The extent of international criticism took on tones of the Vietnam period. Gradually the support for the decision to go to war and, concomitantly, public confidence in the president, began to wither. Moving in tandem down this slowly descending arc were the declining beliefs that Iraq had WMD and links to al Qaeda, and that world public opinion approved of the US going to war with Iraq. But now, while others have peeled off, Bush supporters continue to hold onto their image of Bush as a capable protector. To do this it appears that many need to continue to screen out information that undermines this image.

Ahh, the wonderful, primitive ego defense mechanism called denial. Denial, which conflicts with the capacity to recognize and critically test reality, can sometimes get us through tough times. In this case though, it propogates a destructive process which seemingly is currently recognized only by Kerry supporters.

FRIDAY FUN

Hop onto the CONFERENCE BIKE
Dilbert's House (photo tour)
Disco Squirrel - the Video
Hip-Hop Debate
Ira Nowinski photography
Official Spam Website (the good stuff)
Regret the Error (newspaper miscues)
Stars of the B-Westerns
Turd Birds (small amt. of profanity)
Worst Jobs in Science

Auto Industry Trying to Thwart California & the U.S.

The Union of Concerned Scientists needs you help:

As the world’s fifth largest economy, California’s new law to reduce global warming pollution from automobiles will cause the development of clean car technology on a national scale. However, the new law faces an imminent threat. Rather than directing company engineers to implement existing technologies to build cleaner fleets, the automakers have employed lawyers and lobbyists to thwart California’s efforts, and ultimately prevent other states from adopting this crucial legislation. Take this opportunity to tell Frederick Webber and Timothy MacCarthy, heads of the two major automaker alliances, that American consumers want the industry to use their engineers, not their lawyers, to address global warming pollution. If you own a vehicle, please click here to send an additional letter to your specific automaker(s).

By clicking HERE you can have UCS send a letter to Webber & MacCarthy. Please consider spending a couple of minutes of your time today to help with our future. Left is Right thanks you.

Mr. October

The Left Coaster predicts the October Surprise:

Beware Of The Saturday Trip To Crawford The first real sign of an October surprise cropped up yesterday when the AP reported that Bush would be taking this Saturday off during the home stretch of the campaign to return to the ranch in Crawford. Why would such an announcement be suspect? And why would this be a sure sign that we are in store for another surprise trip by Bush to drop in on our troops somewhere in the world, probably with another fake photo op and stuffed flight suit to boot? Because the last time Bush pulled this off to serve a plastic turkey to hand-selected soldiers in Baghdad last Thanksgiving, Air Force One didn’t fly from Andrews Air Force base to Baghdad. It flew from Crawford....

Found on verbatim:

Q. What's the difference between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War? A. George W. Bush had a plan to get out of the Vietnam War.

Around for Everyone

Burger King: Bad Burgers, Good Politics!

I demand to know...

Youth Vote Uprising? Arianna Huffington Speculates.

Why Bush is the Anti-Christ

Reason #27 Why Athletes Shouldn't Take Steriods: Mental Disorder

Open letter signed by 24 Olympians and Professional Athletes

To our fellow Americans: We have given much thought to the values and characteristics that make a great athlete. Our lives have been spent trying to run farther, push further, and jump higher than the person beside us, or across the field of our chosen sport. With years of training and exhaustive competition beneath our belts, we have identified the values necessary to compete and win--values like personal strength, determination, a sense of fair play and faith. The same qualities that make a great athlete make a great President--the determination to do what is right, regardless of the latest polls, the personal strength to bear the weight of the nation on your shoulders, and the faith that a higher power will direct the actions of good people. We see in President Bush these same qualities. In 2001, our nation was attacked without cause or provocation. The President's values saw us through those dark days after the terrorist attack. The economy was rocked by the dual blows of the terrorists' cowardly action and the reckless disregard of the rules by a few rogue executives. But President Bush's decisive, principled leadership has moved America forward, and today our nation is safer and our economy is strong and getting stronger. The fight against terrorism takes decisiveness. It takes continued support for our troops and first responders. But most importantly, it takes courage and inspirational leadership in the White House. In these critical times, our President has had the courage to stand up and do what's right. For that and for his unwavering character, we choose George W. Bush as our President for the next four years. He is a leader we can depend on to make the tough decisions and the right decisions. Please join us in supporting a candidate of courage, President Bush--a leader who backs our troops defending our nation and shares our values. Paid for by Bush-Cheney '04 Inc.

Bush just doesn't get it.

Question is, do you? (click video on right)

Bush Administration Limits Voting Rights

Here is your compassionate President and his people-friendly Administration hard at work protecting your rights as American citizens:

October 21, 2004 Since the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, the Justice Department has fought to protect and expand the right to vote for of all citizens. All of that has changed during John Ashcroft's tenure as Attorney General. Rather than defending voters' rights, Ashcroft is using the resources of his department to prevent eligible voters from casting their ballot and has refused to prosecute cases of voter discrimination and intimidation. The Bush administration is actively trying to stop Americans from exercising their right to vote. On Monday, the Justice Department filed an 11th-hour brief in Michigan district court opposing efforts by civil rights groups to ensure that registered voters who appear in the right city, township or village – but the wrong precinct – have their votes counted. The right to a so-called "provisional ballot" was explicitly endorsed by Congress in the 2002 Help America Vote Act (HAVA) which sought to correct many of the problems associated with the 2000 election. Federal judge David M. Lawson yesterday ruled against the Justice Department's position and said their brief added "nothing to the arguments." The Bush administration refuses to fight against voter discrimination. Under Ashcroft's command, the Civil Rights Division of Justice has avoided prosecuting nearly all alleged cases of voter discrimination against minorities. The Justice Department has filed one discrimination case in three years, a case in Colorado it later lost. Americans expect their government to protect and expand voting rights, not restrict them. The Bush administration takes the opposite view – use government resources to challenge voters and restrict the rights of all Americans to express their political preferences.

(From CAP Talking Points.)

Mercury: Hair's the Latest News

Excess Mercury Levels Increasing - Survey Shows Fifth of Women of Childbearing Age Are Affected (intro)

By Juliet Eilperin - Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, October 21, 2004; Page A02 One-fifth of women of childbearing age have mercury levels in their hair that exceed federal health standards, according to interim results of a nationwide survey being conducted by researchers at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. The study, which was commissioned by the environmental advocacy group Greenpeace, offers the latest evidence of how much mercury Americans are absorbing by eating fish. Coal-fired power plants and other sources release mercury into the air, which ends up in water and is absorbed by fish. The pollutant, which is a neurotoxin that can cause developmental problems in fetuses and young children, makes its way into the bloodstream when people eat contaminated fish. Researchers at UNC's Environmental Quality Institute based their findings on hair samples from nearly 1,500 people, many of whom learned of the study through the Internet. Participants either paid $25 to submit hair samples with a home testing kit or got free tests at 27 hair salons across the country sponsored by Greenpeace, Aveda salons and state and local environmental groups. Study participants were not randomly chosen, but the report's author, Richard Maas, said they were evenly distributed geographically and that he believes the results reflect overall mercury contamination levels among Americans. He said the tests showed a correlation between how much fish people ate and their mercury levels: One-third of people who ate canned tuna four or more times a week, for example, had mercury levels above Environmental Protection Agency recommendations. "There is no other pollutant out there that has anywhere near this high a percentage of the U.S. population with exposure levels above the government's health advisory levels," said Maas, co-director of the Environmental Quality Institute. "Not lead, not arsenic, nothing." ....

One of many reasons why I never eat anything that swam or crawled under water when alive.

Street Reflections of the Debates

Jason points out this analysis by Paul Street about the recent debates (excerpt):

....At the same time, I've also been taken by how significantly superior Kerry and how incredibly bad Bush has been. Kerry has been cleaning Bush's clock, within the sadly restricted parameters, revealing the incumbent as what he really is: a sputtering, mean-spirited C-student creature of campaign dirty tricks, racist black voter disenfranchisement in Florida (a story about to be repeated), illegal Supreme Court intervention, and of course the great event that Repubicans love to pretend to hate: Nine-Eleven. It's been like watching a battle between two very different centers in an NBA game. Kerry scores inside, scores outside, and has an elegant hookshot. He plays with intelligent and measured grace. He's adept at blocking shots and rarely commits fouls because he doesn't particuarly need to resort to anything much more than his skills. He's slick and effective. Bush is a lumbering. muscle-bound bully who can barely shoot the ball from more than three feet out and scores only after he manages to muscle the other guy out of the way. He fouls constantly and is frequently caught out of position. As he gets more and more "lit up" by his opponent, he becomes more agitated and resorts to baiting his opponent with verbal abuse, calling him a panzy and other nasty names. On the few occasions that he makes anything like a decent shot, he puts on a big stupid grin and parades around the court like a goon. Nobody's quite sure why he even has a starting position in the big leagues but his team is too embarassed to admit how bad his performance is....

George W. Bush is visiting a primary school and he visits one of the classes. They are in the middle of a discussion related to words and their meanings. The teacher asks the President if he would like to lead the discussion of the word "tragedy". So the illustrious leader asks the class for an example of a tragedy. One little boy stands up and offers: "If my best friend who lives on a farm, is playing in the field and a runaway tractor comes along and knocks him dead, that would be a tragedy. "No," says President Bush, "that would be an accident." A little girl raises her hand: "If a school bus carrying 50 children drove over a cliff, killing everyone inside, that would be a tragedy." "I'm afraid not," explains the exalted leader. "That's what we would call a great loss." The room goes silent. No other children volunteer. President Bush searches the room. "Isn't there someone here who can give me an example of a tragedy?" Finally at the back of the room, little Johnny raises his hand. In a quiet voice he says: "If Air Force One carrying you was struck by a missile and blown to smithereens, that would be a tragedy." "Fantastic!" exclaims President Bush, "That's right. And can you tell me why that would be a tragedy?" "Well," says little Johnny, "because it sure as hell wouldn't be a great loss and it probably wouldn't be an accident either."

Author unknown

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but they don’t point to their crotch when they ask where the bathroom is?

DeLayed Pork

DeLay's district to get loan for broadband

WASHINGTON — Nearly $23 million meant to bring the World Wide Web to the rural United States instead will underwrite fast Internet service to affluent Texas suburbs represented by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, a situation Democrats and critics called outrageous yesterday. The loan, from the rural-development wing of the Agriculture Department, includes work in communities outside Houston, in DeLay's district. Farm and telephone groups questioned the wisdom of the $22.7 million loan to ETS Telephone Co. & Subsidiaries, a Houston firm that advertises itself as providing telecommunications for "quality master-planned communities." The loan would help bring broadband service to 9,272 households and businesses just outside the Texas city, said the Agriculture Department. Congress created the program in 2002 to help rural areas, including towns of fewer than 20,000 people, gain Internet access. The ETS project qualified, a USDA official said, because it was in a traditionally agricultural area and met the population criteria. Critics said the USDA loan was misspent. ETS chief Richard Gerstemeier was not available for comment yesterday. A spokesman for DeLay had no comment.

Just a small sample from the platter of goodies our federal government spends, to the tune of tens of billions of dollars, each year in order to get enough members of congress to sign the appropriations bills. If our government is not the most corrupt organization in the world, please tell me who is worse.

Around for Everyone

Florida's new electronic voting machines (hilarious video)

Short Path to Oil Independence (attention Michael Miller)

For all US progressives thinking of voting for someone other than Kerry