Okay, so they probably are not hitting critical mass (yet), but when Apple opens a store here, you know they are reaching... =;-p

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In order to judge the effectiveness of the past 3.5 years of our current administration, I thought it would help our voting preference to list all of their specific accomplishments and failures.

In order to keep this from degrading into a flame-fest, I have stipulated a couple of easy rules.
1) Facts only - No opinions, commentaries or anything subjective.
2) Include TWO at least one, preferrably two links to reputable News organizations

Some suggested sites that you can use to help cut through the "biased" BS are: Watchblog, FactCheck, Snopes, PBS, CampaignDesk.

Accomplishments:

1. Ousted Saddam Hussein (we give this one uncontested... Saddam was an evil bastard) [submitted by haydesigner]


2. Proved definitively that the United Nations is an impotent joke, and useless in world affairs (see also Darfur, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, East Timor, Cambodia, etc). [submitted by haydesigner]


3. Created National "Do Not Call List" (and honestly, it works fantastically!) [submitted by Rob] dcb politely points out that such a list already existed for years through the The Direct Marketing Association. Bush just created a more prominent national list.
   
   
4. Bush cuts taxes and helps to stimulate the economy. (Link 1, Link 2) [submitted by Brian]
   
   
5. Created health savings accounts. (Link 1) [submitted by Brian] Ru correctly points out "Health Savings accounts were created long before Bush. We were given that option by employers a long time ago. They are not a great idea for anyone unless you know exactly how much your are going to need qualified medical care in the year. If you do not use the money saved, you lose it. Essentially not much better than a money market which would at least be yours and give interest".
   haydesigner chimes in, saying "Health Savings accounts are only really useful for planned, elective health care (lasic eye surgery, plastic surgery, etc). With general testing, unforseen and emergency situations, you simply can not plan for the expenses."
   
   
6. Created first prescription drug benefit. (Link 1) [submitted by Brian] haydesigner points out that most conservatives highly dislike this law that Bush railroaded through, and view it only as something that the administration did to diffuse any Democratic leverage with seniors. Also, the drug prices have very noticably not improved with this 'benefit', and many participants have problems figuring out what to do.
   
   
7. Proposed and passed the Patriot Act. (Link 1) [submitted by Brian]
   Ru disputes, noting that this is "the very act that most who signed it feel a bit chagrined now. This is the worst legislation that does nothing better than remove most of our constitutional rights. Most passed it without reading it in the zeal after 9/11. Courts are [constantly and consistently] overturning portions of it as unconstitutional."
   
   
8. Signed McCain/Fiengold campaign finance reform act. (Link 1) [submitted by Brian]
   
   
9. Helped to combat corporate corruption with far reaching bill. (Link 1) [submitted by Brian] haydesigner points out that Brian's link shows that this was a Democrat initiative, and the Republicans originally wanted a much weaker version until public outcry forced them to the stronger version. This was not a Bush initiative, and he should not get credit for it. ----
   Ru also says "Useless. Without enforcement. Window dressing for the gullible masses. Even the FDA has stopped going after Pharma companies that give intentional MISLEADING data to consumers in their ads - which is illegal, they wait until the ad is off the air because the marketing window has passed to say "hey, stop it."
   
   
10. We have not been attacked on american soil since 9/11. (Link 1) [submitted by Brian] haydesigner asks how often were we attacked on American soil by foreigners before 9/11?
    
    
11. Libya admitted it had WMD and is acting to get rid of them. (Link 1) [submitted by Brian]
    
    
12. Initiated discussion on privatizing Social Security and individual investment accounts. (Link 1) [submitted by Brian] dcb disputes, saying among other things "The system would function like your 401K at work does. You don’t get free reign to invest the money as you see fit." and "And because there is no government backing ..., there is virtually nothing to protect your money." and substantially increases risks of corruption.
    haydesigner adds, "Privatization is the complete antithesis of what Social Security was intended to do... which was to give American citizens a small measure of fiscal protection for retirement. Privitising would remove virtually ALL measures of said protection for the slim chance at a slightly higher amount of money. If you want to fix SS (and yes, changes need to be made), try starting at fixing the government handling of it, NOT the principle of SS (see Failure #9 below, for example). That would go a long way to fixing the monetary imbalance." Social Security is not meant to be a retirement account. It is meant to be a safety net.
    


13. need your addition!

Failures:

1. Cut Underfunded Veterans Benefits (funding increase less than cost-of-living increase), wanted to cut pay for active troops (but now got a 3.5% raise to troops to not lose their votes), limited Active-duty military's freedom of speech (Link 1, Link 2, 2A, Link 3) [for Brian - Link 4] [submitted and clarified by haydesigner] Disputed by Brian E.: (Link 5, Link 6)
   


2. Largest deficit in history (Link 1, Link 2) [submitted by Ru] Disputed by Brian E., says while deficit is largest in terms of actual dollars, it is smaller than under Bush Sr and Reagan in relation to the GDP: (Link 3) Ru counters by pointing out that Brian's link also disregards the trade imbalance.
   


3. Legalized Environmental Pillaging: Mountaintop removal, re-classification of mercury pollution (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3) [submitted by Rob]


4. Underfunded "No Child Left Behind" by over 9 billion dollars in 2005 (Link 1, Link 2) [submitted by Rob]


5. The Children's Environmental Health Network assigns an "F" for the Bush Administration's consistent lack of commitment to children's environmental health research and programs (Link 1) [submitted by Rob]


6. Mis-represents tax cuts: 83% of taxpayers will get less than the average cut stated by the administration. (Link 1) [submitted by Rob]


7. Promised to be "a uniter, not a divider." (Link1) [submitted by haydesigner]


8. Lost more jobs that any president since Herbert Hoover; Weakest job recovery since the 1930s (Link1) [submitted by haydesigner] Disputed by Brian E.; Reagan lost 100,000 more jobs over an 8 year period : (Link 3) haydesigner counters by pointing that unemployment figures are highly flawed anyway, and are undereported by not counting people who are long-term unemployed (over 6 months out of work) and people who have only been able to find part-time work since losing their full-time job (so-called underemployed).
   


9. "Uses Social Security surpluses to pay for other programs every year through 2013, ultimately diverting more than $1.4 trillion in Social Security funds to other purposes." [The New York Times, 2/6/02] [submitted by haydesigner]


10. Bush opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security [White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, 3/19/02], then flips, and supported the creation of the Department of Homeland Security [Address to the Nation, 6/6/02] [submitted by haydesigner]


11. Oil... President promised to force OPEC to Lower prices [CNN, 1/26/00],
    then "flip-flops" and refused to "personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds." [Miami Herald, 4/1/04] [submitted by haydesigner]


12. Believes carbon dioxide is not a pollutant (?!) and therefore that the government should not "impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide." (Link1) [submitted by haydesigner]


13. The White House "deliberately blocked the government’s own experts from warning Americans about the extent and danger of the poisons that polluted the air and site and refused to enforce safety rules for Ground Zero workers" and press releases were "edited by the Bush White House's Council on Environmental Quality" (Link1) [submitted by haydesigner]


14. looking for more!

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Contrary to initial instinct, this is not a post regaling the Bush's impending departure...
It is all about moi.

In the long yesteryears of 1991, I descended upon Chicago with my first dorm-free apartment, shacking up with Steve and James in Logan Square (3123 W. Lyndale, to be exact). We shared a 2-flat above three UofW-Madison dropouts graduates, Susan, Scott and Kate, with no future looking for gainful employment outside of Wisconsin. I keed, I keed... they were great people, we got drunk with them far too often.

But it was on October 26th, 1993 that a fateful event happened... I threw myself my first B-day/Halloween party (since no one else ever seemed interested in throwing a party for me). It was a very interesting and well-attended event that featured, among other things, a nudist stripping in our living room (unfortunately, said nudist was male) and a group make-out session at the end of the evening (yours truly not a participant).

It was such a smash, that everyone clamored for one the next year... and the next... and the next. I lasted through 3 apartments and one house (once, even my brother and Bri volunteered to host it!). All in all... thirteen years, thirteen drunken, debauchery-filled costumed freak-fests.

Admittedly, as our circle of friends got older and smaller and more varied (and actually started marrying and propigating... the nerve!), the parties mellowed more and more to where they became a way of mutual friends and relatives to catch up more than get drunk/hook-up. But still, they were an institution and reliable, as I held it on the Saturday before Halloween every single year.

Sadly, this year it all comes to an end.

Since no one has expressed an interest in coming out to San Diego for my birthday party, tonight I shall simply have to spend without my friends and relatives. For those of you reading this who have attended in the past, I will miss each of you, and I sincerely thank you for coming out over the years. Perhaps another tradition will rear up to take the place of this one, but until then, I will look back at many fond memories, and hum "Happy Birthday To Me" very loudly, and off-key.

PS Bri and Rob and Ru, I completely forgot... you three actually met at last year's soiree...
PPS Props out to my peeps who called, emailed, snail-mailed cards to me! Special props to both couples who actually sang happy b-day to me over the phone! =;-)

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The Poor Man has a note from a Republican, retired Air Force pilot that talks about the issues impacting his life in Texas, and how they led him away from voting for Bush. For those of our readers who feel that the fringe far-right has hijacked your party, you don't seem to be alone.

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Rudy Giuliani, Mr. "Leadership" himself, is now blaming the troops for not seeking and securing the 380 tons of high explosives pilfered from al Qaqaa:

From the October 28 edition of NBC's Today

GIULIANI: The president was cautious. The president was prudent. The president did what a commander in chief should do. And no matter how much you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?

The horrible part is that Fox and the rest of the conservative "talking points" machine seems to be willing to play along. They're helping Bush set up the soldiers take all the heat for his mistake, in spite of their orders to get to Baghdad and secure the city against increasing unrest "as soon as possible."

The commander, Col. Joseph Anderson, of the Second Brigade of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, said he did not learn until this week that the site, Al Qaqaa, was considered sensitive, or that international inspectors had visited it before the war began in 2003 to inspect explosives that they had tagged during a decade of monitoring.

Colonel Anderson, who is now the chief of staff for the division and who spoke by telephone from Fort Campbell, Ky., said his troops had been driving north toward Baghdad and had paused at Al Qaqaa to make plans for their next push.

"We happened to stumble on it,'' he said. "I didn't know what the place was supposed to be. We did not get involved in any of the bunkers. It was not our mission. It was not our focus. We were just stopping there on our way to Baghdad. The plan was to leave that very same day. The plan was not to go in there and start searching. It looked like all the other ammunition supply points we had seen already."

Ladies and gentlemen, our president.

INSTANT UPDATE: KTSP ABC says they have footage the shows high explosives at the site on April 18, 2003. So, soldiers were there, soldiers left massive materièl dump unsecured in rush to pursue "higher priorities," bad guys get explosives bonanza. Game, set, match. Next player, please.


UPDATE 2: KTSP ABC has released footage actually showing the IAEA seals at al Qaqaa 4/18/03.

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I have recently been logging on at night to the Mt. St. Helen's VolcanoCam at the monument observatory. I've seen the dark outline of the volcano in the moonlight and a strange white light shooting out of the top. On dark nights all you would see was the odd white light. Of course, tonight it is obscured in "weather." It's an interesting view in the day time, but some night soon, check in and see if you get the light show. The "Hall of Fame" shots are interesting, and they have a few new images. The images from the camera are static but update every five minutes.

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The hits just keep coming this week. The FBI is looking into the no-bid Iraqi rebuilding contracts awarded to Halliburton last year. They're seeking to determine whether the award was legal, as well as examining allegations of massive taxpayer overbilling by the company.

The vice president, who continues to receive deferred compensation from when he was Halliburton's chief executive in the late 1990s, has steadfastly maintained he has played no role in the selection of his former company for federal business.

Oh, yeah, that too: they're investigating whether he's lying, and did in fact coordinate the award of the contract to his former company.

My favorite part of this story is, of course, the name "Bunnatine Greenhouse."

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Novelist (and armchair Middle-East expert) Roger Simon pre-declares ji-blog-had:

If the Kerry does win, the mainstream media will have gotten him elected with their biased coverage and they will pay for it more than they could imagine. And it will be the blogosphere and you, our supporters, who will make them pay. Our strength will grow incremently with a Kerry victory in terms of influence and even economic power. And both will be at the expense of the mainstream media. Yes, we too have "plans."

The hard-core right can sense the wind changing. They're adopting their "snarling defiance" poses, declaring any Kerry win tainted rather than admit that America rejected their fringe-conservative reality warp. For my part, I'm eager to start seeing the phrase, "President-Elect Kerry" everywhere.

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Assistant Professor of History Matthew Lenoe of Assumption College points out similarities between modern right-wing political activism and Stalin's "revolutionary" methods of managing public perception.

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There's a kit and a nice discussion forum to get them rolling. After that, they can move on to "advanced creepy."

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Benjamin Zycher of the Public Policy Institute walks us through his take on the electoral college. It apparently serves some purpose as a load balancer in the American democratic process.

Once a candidate determines that he will be able to win a plurality in a state, thus getting all the electoral college votes, there is no point in campaigning further in that state. The candidate is then driven (by the pressure of the market, so to speak) to develop plurality support in additional states. Thus are candidates forced to broaden their geographic bases; those whose support is heavily regionalized are penalized implicitly.

Maybe there is some reason for it besides screwing up exit-poll projections.

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Perhaps W. didn't understand Photoshop wasn't actually making more troops?

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I watched a stem cell symposium the other night from UCal. I was re-educated on the issue. All of this time I thought the "embryos" that everyone was talking about were just the unlucky un-implanted offspring of infertile couples. Potential babies slaughtered? I am sure there are scientists making embryos from scratch just to kill them. Others clearly are not. Let me explain.

Ethical researchers do not create embryos or take those that are suitable for implantation. When an infertile couple goes for IVF, their eggs and sperm are harvested. These gametes are then combined, by injecting healthy-looking sperm into healthy-looking eggs. The laboratory staff then wait. Under the right circumstances these gametes combine, form a zygote (one totipotent stem cell inside of an egg casing). Then, hopefully, the zygote begins cell division and becomes a blastocyst of many pluripotent stem cells. In each circumstance some if not all of these fertilizations stall before they form what would be called a healthy embryo. They just do not divide anymore. If an implant with one of these is attempted, the abnormal cell mass will die, immediately or soon. Having learned this, a doctor will only transfer into the womb good, healthy looking embryos or in the case of a very bad batch, maybe a couple of the least marginal embryos (slow growers). He will never attempt to transfer the stalled embryos, even if that is all that the couples have. Their harvest has failed, and they have to start over or select donor embryos. Bad embryos are often still living cells but for any number of reasons not viable as babies (sperm and eggs are often bad genetic combinations, naturally, each gamete is a biological gamble). Marginal embryos rarely implant and grow into babies, but they can be given the chance to try. The rest of these abnormal cell masses are slated for destruction, incinerated with bio-hazardous waste. Lets make it clear that they are unsuitable for implantation and will not yield a baby, not ever. Essentially God or whatever will/process you believe is at work here has already weeded them out of living humanity. Natural selection did not go their way, even with scientific help.

Even the single-cell zygote that has stalled has a stem cell. If it remains alive and is not destroyed, that stem cell might be propagated (in the case of one researcher, on easily available placenta) and can yield an unlimited supply of stem cells. The zygote is stimulated to start a different kind of cell division that looks nothing like an embryo (a smooth, regular ball of round cells) - more like a ragged, spiky sea urchin. The cells don't even look like stem cells yet. The cells are removed from the mass, then given the placenta feeder to "socialize" with and they recover and become healthy, embryonic stem cells. Who knows, they may repair their broken DNA with information from the placenta. One person's stem cells can turn into another person's, which is one of the reasons they are so useful. They showed video of these cells, they almost resemble bacteria - they are motile, social creatures that need intimate contact with some other tissue to grow. They need to touch each other to divide. They communicate. They explore their environment. They are, essentially, life. On the placenta feeder, they divide indefinitely. This means that these doomed, hopeless cells have found new life in saving who knows how many lives (millions?), over who knows how long (decades?).

The president talked about all of the stem cell lines that researchers are allowed to use. With the exception of about a dozen or so, the rest of the lines have been contaminated by the use of a mouse cell feeders. The stem cells have already "communicated" with the mouse genes (zoonosis) and are probably no longer entirely human. Those contaminated lines can no longer be used for transplant into humans or even reliable human cell toxicity studies for drugs.

The remaining lines are insufficient to study the potentials for curing human disease. I know a lot of people discuss how the populations that suffer a rare disease or injury are not large enough to justify this realm of medicine. OK, lets talk heart disease; the number one cause of death for every adult. According to another presenter at this symposium, a promising use is studying the toxicity of pharmaceuticals on heart tissue before that drug goes to market. Drugs are tested for toxicity in mice before they go into human trails. Basically they see how much drug it takes to kill half of the test population of mice. This establishes the first known fatal toxicity and dosage information. Mice have hearts that can withstand several drugs that human hearts cannot. We find out, sometimes several years after drugs go to market, that they have irrevocably damaged human hearts. Humans have no heart "Stem Cell" but other stem cells can be stimulated to form heart tissue. Growing a complete heart is not currently possible, even the ability to grow heart tissue with adequate circulation system is currently an insurmountable task. Where we can't cure all heart disease we can prevent a lot of it; a large percentage of people with the heart disease got it from some pharmaceutical or a combination of them. If you have ever read your medicine's warnings about not taking them with certain other drugs, chances are because a number of people died doing just that. Testing these drugs for safety in human heart tissue cultures from a wide base of genetic lines would be life-saving medicine affecting a majority of the population.

In the method listed above, limiting the creation of stem cell lines is not logical. It is not saving any babies, and babies are not destroyed. It is not even the ethical dilemma posed by the otherwise conflicted. These stem cells are propagated from cells that have already proved themselves unable to become a human being. These are just cells that were given every chance and failed to become anything viable. Short of disputing the use of any human cell, there is no issue here.

I can understand the dilemma of allowing viable embryos to be created simply for the purpose of destruction, but what about the tens of thousands of cells destroyed simply because they already failed to become anything but cells? Shouldn't these be allowed to be studied? Isn't that a far more noble end than an incinerator? I know that as a parent I feel a sense of loss from having only one biological child. I certainly would not want any viable embryos to not get a chance at life. But if I had a failed attempt, I would be honored to donate the cell, in it's last living moments to the advancement of science, and maybe even to the transplantation to other humans. To me, it would feel like donating a lost child's organs so that something of them, and someone still alive could continue to live.

Oh, and I still want everyone to save their kids' umbilical stem cells, too.

More links forthcoming, I am tired and some of this data is too new to be publicly published (free).

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I just got a note from an old friend about a Secret Service visit to a blogger he's read. Since some of the comments here may have started to squeeze up against the "investigatable" line, I thought I'd pass it along, for what it's worth. I know very well that none of our regulars are really any more dangerous than a bag of Doritos, but these guys take this stuff seriously (and, sadly, I suppose they have reason to). So, again, for what it's worth. Feel free to make your First Amendment rants in the comments.

(How secret is your service, by the way, if you have a site on the web?)

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Did anyone else see this on the ABC Nightly News on Tuesday, Oct. 26?

The Republican National Committee is running a radio spot in the south claiming that the reason Democrats are in favor of abortion rights is because they want to control the black population.

I need your help in locating the audio file for this. I have done a very basic search but have struck out.

Any help with this is truly appreciated.

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Seen "Mosh" yet? It's not his best work, but even if you don't like Eminem I'd still recommend you take a look, particularly if you have a job, healthcare coverage, an SUV or a bow tie. There's some real menace in the nation lately, and he's tapped into it. For better or worse, he's even given it a pretty good stir. It's starting to get pretty damned dark out there...

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In case you missed it, the Cleveland Plain Dealer was at an impasse last week over who to endorse for president. The editorial board, people with a lifetime of experience covering local and national political issues, chose to endorse John Kerry. The publisher of the paper preferred Bush, and ordered the editorial board to endorse him. They refused.

Let me turn aside for a moment to express my gratitude to these editors. They took a stand for what they believed to be objective, reasoned truth; thank you!

Now, most citizens don't have time to be political experts. Many of them walk into the polls with only what they've heard from an ad or two to inform their vote, which is very bad. "Yay!" for voting, "Boo!" for making an uninformed choice.

The editors of an objective newspaper, on the other hand, are political experts. It's very reasonable to assume that they can break down the issues into some useful nutshells and then talk about them relative to each candidate's stated position and demonstrated record. Even if you choose not to follow their endorsement, being able to see a synopsis of the campaign in an hour's reading is a huge step toward an informed, active electorate. This is one of the ways an effective and impartial press benefits a society.

To see this whole process sidestepped in favor of one man's opinion is nauseating. It's no better than, say, abusing the public trust by filling the airwaves with partisan slander in the last days before an election.

So, again, thanks to the editorial board of the Cleveland Plain Dealer. Instead of simply rolling over, they managed to beat their publisher back to a stop-loss position: the paper's not endorsing anyone at all.

This is hardly an ideal solution. Cleveland's citizens just got screwed out of a team of skilled advisors with a deep understanding of local needs and issues. In a compromise to one man's preferences.

The take-away? The next time you start flogging Fox or CNN for a lack of objectivity, picture the small group of men who actually hold the most stock. Who are these people? What can we do to make their choices more visible? How can we encourage transparency in their operations? If we don't do something to pry the lid off these back-room opinion factories, we're in danger of having no trusted media at all. America with no press; how's that sound?

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I'm still super-busy, but this is one of the few times in my life I stopped cold when I heard the news...

People like to brag about power and influence of icons of various industries, but it is honestly hard to over-estimate the importance of one man, John Peel, in the music industry. A 'lowly' DJ, he was responsible for breaking an enourmous amount of new bands for the past 30+ years. He owned 25,776 vyinl LPs alone!

Just take a look at the Amazon search in their Music section when you type in "Peel Sessions"... 131 results. A short list of names that have done a Peel Session (usually before they ever did a full album) is a virtual who's who of early alternative rock:

Jesus & Mary Chain, Smashing Pumpkins, New Order, The Jam, Adam & The Ants, Siouxsie & The Banshees, Babes in Toyland, Billy Bragg, Xymox, Meat Beat Manifesto, Jimi Hendrix, Thin Lizzy, Autechre, Wire, Buzzcocks, Happy Mondays, The Orb... even Syd Barrett!

And those are just some of the active CDs... there must be dozens more. Off the top of my head, I know I own The Cure, The Cocteau Twins, Julian Cope, The Smiths (never understood why Bri liked them so much) and The Cult. I bet I have about 20 more...

Music is a big part of my life, and occupies a good majority of my free time (listening, not playing, sadly enough). Many are the nights in college when we (yes, this includes the infamous Brian of commenting fame) would sit around drinking, BS'ing and listening to a new album one of us had bought. I can't tell you how many concerts I have been to in my life... if I had to guess, I'd say in the neighborhood of 400 or so (and considering that I average about 2/year the past 5 years, yes, I was quite active in the Chicago music scene). I've probably been to about 50 with Brian (hell, Brian was the one who convinced me to go see New Model Army way back in 1989 when I never heard of them! They wanted an outrageous $20 at the Metro, and they have been my favorite band ever since). I personally have a strong preference to British alternative rock (not pop, mind you), and John Peel was, indirectly, very influential in what I heard, and grew to love...

Today, DJ John Peel, patron of budding rock stars, dies.

John Peel was a definite icon while he was alive, and perhaps even more so on his death. Sadly, given the corporatisation of the music industry, I fear we will never see anyone even close to his passion and influence again. I hope I am wrong.

John Peel, I salute you!
And I thank you.

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The Republicans will be placing hired thugs monitors thugs at many Florida polling places (will we see them in Illinois?) to "challenge" certain voters' right to vote. The BBC (they're awfully interested in this election, aren't they?) has an investigative report revealing the existence of a list of voter names, called a "caging list," in the possession of the BC'04 campaign headquarters in Florida. As in, don't let these voters vote, stick them in a cage? Not clear, but in any case, a Tallahassee, FL election supervisor suggests that the only reason to keep such a list would be to challenge voters on election day. Of particular interest, the list seems to be composed mainly of voters living in mainly black communities, which may make it unlawful.

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.

Perhaps the Republican party is too dumb to notice how impolitic this behavior is, but I doubt it. In "normal" circumstances, I would expect a huge anti-Republican backlash as the electorate rejects such heavy-handed voter management techniques. Hey, who knows? There must be some reason they feel like they can pull out all the stops this year. Remember that "suspend the elections" trial balloon that went up a few months ago? I'm starting to get a little concerned with how fast and loose the Republicans are playing with campaign law, voter confidence and election law. If you haven't worked on everyone you know to get out and vote yet, you might want to get cracking...

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[from DigitalMediaTree.com]

(and no wire hangers, dammit!)

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[from Editor & Publisher]

NEW YORK Sen. John Kerry continued his raid on newspapers that backed President Bush in 2000, grabbing 24 new "flip-flops," plus The Washington Post, which was a major supporter of the war in Iraq. The Democrat has now won endorsements from at least 35 papers that went for Bush in 2000, while Bush has earned only two Gore papers.

However, Bush got a prize in the key state of Ohio, The Columbus Dispatch.

Kerry now leads Bush 125-96 in endorsements in E&P's exclusive tally, and he leads by about 16 million to 10 million in the circulation of backing papers.

The Sun-Times, they are a-changin'...

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Yet another cost of not putting enough boots on the ground in Iraq: the Iraqi National Congress has kindly informed us that one of their major military supply dumps seems to have been looted during or after the invasion. As Condoleeza Rice fails to inform us, insurgents are now in possession of 380 tons of military-spec high explosives.

But a senior administration official told CNN that national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was notified about the missing weapons about a month ago. Iraq Survey Group inspectors are investigating, the official said.

The discovery was not made public sooner because standard intelligence practice is not to let the enemy know such information, the official said.

There are hundreds of tons of other weapons and munitions missing around the country, and it is impossible for the United States to track down all of them, the official said.

Not let the enemy know they took 380 tons of bombs? Wait, how about "not let the American voter know..." Yeah, much more likely. I also like the spin that this is "only another 380 tons, there's already lots of other stuff missing, too." Does that mean this invasion just put most of the weapons of an entire (notably aggressive) nation into the hands of terrorists?

Not just firecrackers, either. Seems they got the good stuff:

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 produce bombs strong enough to shatter airplanes or tear apart buildings.
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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. The other components of an atom bomb - the design and the radioactive fuel - are more difficult to obtain.

Predictably, the Bush Administration is downplaying both the threat and their mistake:

"This is a high explosives risk, but not necessarily a proliferation risk," one senior Bush administration official said.
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A Pentagon spokesman, Lawrence Di Rita, said Sunday evening that Saddam Hussein's government "stored weapons in mosques, schools, hospitals and countless other locations," and that the allied forces "have discovered and destroyed perhaps thousands of tons of ordnance of all types." A senior military official noted that HMX and RDX were "available around the world" and not on the nuclear nonproliferation list, even though they are used in the nuclear warheads of many nations.
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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.

Because, you know, attacking another country and not seizing their munitions is "hard work." How big a mistake do they need to make before accountability and a shift in strategy kick in?

For the record, the Bush Administration seems to be the only group spinning this down. The International Atomic Energy Agency has said:

In May, an internal I.A.E.A. memorandum warned that terrorists might be helping "themselves to the greatest explosives bonanza in history."

I suppose we'll get it all back, eventually. Like, a carload at a time.

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[Editor's note: Blogger's "Compose" function blows... it really munged the HTML in this post (that's what I get for trying to work faster I guess), so I had to re-code everything by hand... hopefully it should display nicely now. Sorry for those of you who pointed it out. Also, I bumped this up again.]

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This was prompted by 2 things. The first was my constant wondering why the president only attacks his challenger, instead of running his campaign off of his accomplishments (which, historically, is what the incumbent does). The second was the ongoing dialogue in the comments section from my post last week, The "Anti" Manifesto (soon to be required reading in kindergartens across the US).

In order to judge the effectiveness of the past 3.5 years of our current administration, I thought it would help our voting preference to list all of their specific accomplishments and failures. I would like all of our loyal readers (and we are up to over 700!) to please join in... I especially encourage all Bush supporters to join in (seriously!). Call your friends for help if you need it!

In order to keep this from degrading into a flame-fest, I have stipulated a couple of easy rules.
1) Facts only - No opinions, commentaries or anything subjective.
2) Include TWO at least one, preferrably two links to reputable News organizations (yes, we will accept FoxNews) that support what you say (but no editorials or blatantly partisan sites [moveon.org, swiftboatveterans, etc]), unless is it directly from a organizational study (i.e. EPA, Sierra Club). I will pull the ones that follow these rules from the comments section, and add them to this post with your name attributed to it (if you prefer to not be named, just do not put your name in the comment section). I may also keep bumping up this post in the visual cue to keep it in everyone's periphery (assuming people contribute, that is). Some suggested sites that you can use are: Watchblog, FactCheck, Snopes, PBS, CampaignDesk.

Accomplishments:

1. Ousted Saddam Hussein (we give this one uncontested... Saddam was an evil bastard) [submitted by haydesigner]


2. Proved definitively that the United Nations is an impotent joke, and useless in world affairs (see also Darfur, Bosnia, Kosovo, Rwanda, East Timor, Cambodia, etc). [submitted by haydesigner]


3. Created National "Do Not Call List" (and honestly, it works fantanstically!) [submitted by Rob]


4. need your addition!

Failures:

1. Cut Underfunded Veterans Benefits (funding increase less than cost-of-living increase), wanted to cut pay for active troops (but now got a 3.5% raise to troops to not lose their votes), limited Active-duty military's freedom of speech (Link 1, Link 2, 2A, Link 3) [for Brian - Link 4] [submitted and clarified by haydesigner] (Link 5, Link 6) [submitted by Brian E.]


2. Largest deficit in history (Link 1, Link 2) [submitted by Ru]


3. Legalized Environmental Pillaging: Mountaintop removal, re-classification of mercury pollution (Link 1, Link 2, Link 3) [submitted by Rob]


4. Underfunded "No Child Left Behind" by over 9 billion dollars in 2005 (Link 1, Link 2) [submitted by Rob]


5. The Children's Environmental Health Network assigns an "F" for the Bush Administration's consistent lack of commitment to children's environmental health research and programs (Link 1) [submitted by Rob]


6. Mis-represents tax cuts: 83% of taxpayers will get less than the average cut stated by the administration. (Link 1) [submitted by Rob]


7. Promised to be "a uniter, not a divider." (Link1) [submitted by haydesigner]


8. Lost more jobs that any president since Herbert Hoover; Weakest job recovery since the 1930s (Link1) [submitted by haydesigner]


9. "Uses Social Security surpluses to pay for other programs every year through 2013, ultimately diverting more than $1.4 trillion in Social Security funds to other purposes." [The New York Times, 2/6/02] [submitted by haydesigner]


10. Bush opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security [White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, 3/19/02], then flips, and supported the creation of the Department of Homeland Security [Address to the Nation, 6/6/02] [submitted by haydesigner]


11. Oil... President promised to force OPEC to Lower prices [CNN, 1/26/00],
    then "flip-flops" and refused to "personally lobby oil cartel leaders to change their minds." [Miami Herald, 4/1/04] [submitted by haydesigner]


12. Believes carbon dioxide is not a pollutant (?!) and therefore that the government should not "impose on power plants mandatory emissions reductions for carbon dioxide." (Link1) [submitted by haydesigner]


13. The White House "deliberately blocked the government’s own experts from warning Americans about the extent and danger of the poisons that polluted the air and site and refused to enforce safety rules for Ground Zero workers" and press releases were "edited by the Bush White House's Council on Environmental Quality" (Link1) [submitted by haydesigner]


14. looking for more!

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The cool company with the worlds coolest logo came out with some very alarming numbers on Thursday that the news organizations and world leaders will dutifully ignore:

"The world has some 28 billion acres of productive land and ocean to meet the needs of 6.3 billion people--an average of 4.4 acres person. At current rates of consumption, however, the global ecological footprint requires an average of 5.4 acres' productivity per person - roughly 20 percent more than what can be sustained today's levels"

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A total eclipse of the moon will be visible in most of the Eastern United States on Wednesday, October 27th. For those of us enjoying Central Daylight Time, the actual eclipse (distinct from the "penumbra" phases) will run from 9:23 PM to 10:45 PM. A more detailed breakdown of times and location-visibility is available here. Space.com covers the World Series connection, if you're into that sort of thing.

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November 2, you vote for this, or against it. (With a nod of thanks to AbuAardvark.)

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I like quotes, as in "Bartlett's Familiar Quotations" quotes. They're distilled ideas that stood the test of time. So, here's the beginning of a new feature. From time to time, expect an interesting quotation.

"You can't talk to the ignorant about lies, since they have no criteria." --Ezra Pound

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Sinclair caved. Hard. See what happens when you piss off a hundred million people? Remember this moment, mainstream America. It's your country to keep, or lose to the fringes. Next up: George W. Bush. See you at the ballot box.

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Much as I dislike Bush, and as badly as I want him to go away so we can start fixing the damage he's caused, watching a British comedian call for his assassination is an outrage. I can't believe that it's acceptable, even in the UK, even under the guise of "wit," to offer up such a brutal and disruptive suggestion as genuine political commentary.

The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?

It's possible to assume, given the bantering tone of the rest of the piece, that columnist Charlie Brooker intended this to be a smartass throwaway line. With America in the midst of such a vituperative and hard-fought election, it's naive and just plain stupid to assume that it would be read that way. I would have expected better judgment from The Guardian, if not Mr. Brooker.

Although taking political advice from the guys who pissed away an empire seems unwise at best, we appreciate where you're coming from, Charlie. But, in the immortal words of DMX, "We got this."

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