But hey, with all this serious news, we need to laugh-- so, IMAO's "endorsement" is actually a series of 8 stick-figure cartoons. Check it out...

Wow, this story sure was lost in our American-centric news:

ROME (AP) - European leaders on Friday signed the EU's first constitution, a diplomatic triumph they hope will give the union a sharper international profile and speed up decision-making in a club now embracing 25 nations.

The treaty was the result of 28 months of sometimes acrimonious debate between the 25 EU governments and now faces ratification in national parliaments. At least nine EU nations also plan to put it to a referendum, increasing chances that it may not take effect in 2007 as scheduled.

To be sure, this EU Constitution has a long ways to go before it is the ruling law of Europe, but many Europessimists said that the leaders would never even agree on the text. Wrong.

David Brooks proves once again why he's my favorite columnist at the NYTimes (of course, that isn't saying all that much) with this excellent column: The Osama Litmus Test-- excerpts:

The nuisance is back!

Remember when John Kerry told Matt Bai of The Times Magazine that he wanted to reduce the terrorists to a nuisance? Kerry vowed to mitigate the problem of terrorism until it became another regrettable and tolerable fact of life, like gambling, organized crime and prostitution.

That was the interview in which he said Sept. 11 "didn't change me much at all." He said it confirmed in him a sense of urgency, "of doing the things we thought we needed to be doing."

Well, the Osama bin Laden we saw last night was not a problem that needs to be mitigated. He was not the leader of a movement that can be reduced to a nuisance...

Here was this monster who killed 3,000 of our fellows showing up on our TV screens, trying to insert himself into our election, trying to lecture us on who is lying and who is telling the truth. Here was this villain traipsing through his own propaganda spiel with copycat Michael Moore rhetoric about George Bush in the schoolroom, and Jeb Bush and the 2000 Florida election.

Here was this deranged killer spreading absurd theories about the American monarchy and threatening to murder more of us unless we do what he says...

One of the crucial issues of this election is, Which candidate fundamentally gets the evil represented by this man? Which of these two guys understands it deep in his gut - not just in his brain or in his policy statements, but who feels it so deep in his soul that it consumes him?...

This is why Kerry is not cleaning Bush's clock in this election. Many people are not sure that he gets the fundamental moral confrontation. Many people are not sure he feels it, or feels anything...

The text of Osama's speech:

You American people, my speech to you is the best way to avoid another conflict about the war and its reasons and results. I am telling you security is an important pillar of human life. And free people don't let go of their security contrary to Bush's claims that we hate freedom. He should tell us why we didn't hit Sweden for instance. Its known that those who hate freedom don't have dignified souls.like the 19 who were blessed. But we fought you because we are free people, we don't sleep on our oppression. We want to regain the freedom of our Muslim nation as you spill our security, we spill your security.

I am so surprised by you. Although we are in the fourth year after the events of Sept 11, Bush is still practicing distortion and misleading on you, and obscuring the main reasons and therefore the reasons are still existing to repeat what happened before. I will tell you the reasons behind theses incidents.

I will be honest with you on the moment when the decision was taken to understand. We never thought of hitting the towers. But after we were so fed up, and we saw the oppression of the American Israeli coalition on our people in Palestine and Lebanon, it came to my mind and the incidents that really touched me directly goes back to 1982 and the following incidents. When the US permitted the Israelis to invade Lebanon with the assistance of the 6th fleet. In these hard moments, it occurred to me so many meanings I cant explain but it resulted in a general feeling of rejecting oppression and gave me a hard determination to punish the oppressors. While I was looking at the destroyed towers in Lebanon, it came to my mind to punish the oppressor the same way and destroy towers in the US to get a taste of what they tasted, and quit killing our children and women.

We didn't find difficulty dealing with Bush and his administration due to the similarity of his regime and the regimes in our countries. Whish half of them are ruled by military and the other half by sons of kings and presidents and our experience with them is long. Both parties are arrogant and stubborn and the greediness and taking money without right and that similarity appeared during the visits of Bush to the region while people from our side were impressed by the US and hoped that these visits would influence our countries. Here he is being influenced by these regimes, Royal and military. And was feeling jealous they were staying for decades in power stealing the nations finances without anybody overseeing them. So he transferred the oppression of freedom and tyranny to his son and they call it the Patriot Law to fight terrorism. He was bright in putting his sons as governors in states and he didn't forget to transfer his experience from the rulers of our region to Florida to falsify elections to benefit from it in critical times.

We agreed with Mohamed Atta, god bless him, to execute the whole operation in 20 minutes. Before Bush and his administration would pay attention and we never thought that the high commander of the US armies would leave 50 thousand of his citizens in both towers to face the horrors by themselves when they most needed him because it seemed to distract his attention from listening to the girl telling him about her goat butting was more important than paying attention to airplanes butting the towers which gave us three times the time to execute the operation thank god.

Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda. Your security is in your hands. Each state that doesn't mess with our security has automatically secured their security.

Belmont Club's commentary is right on, so I'll quote it in its entirety:

It is important to notice what he has stopped saying in this speech. He has stopped talking about the restoration of the Global Caliphate. There is no more mention of the return of Andalusia. There is no more anticipation that Islam will sweep the world. He is no longer boasting that Americans run at the slightest wounds; that they are more cowardly than the Russians. He is not talking about future operations to swathe the world in fire but dwelling on past glories. He is basically saying if you leave us alone we will leave you alone. Though it is couched in his customary orbicular phraseology he is basically asking for time out.

The American answer to Osama's proposal will be given on Election Day. One response is to agree that the United States of America will henceforth act like Sweden, which is on track to become majority Islamic sometime after the middle of this century. The electorate best knows which candidate will serve this end; which candidate most promises to be European-like in attitude and they can choose that path with both eyes open. The electorate can strike that bargain and Osama may keep his word. The other course is to reject Osama's terms utterly; to recognize the pleading in his outwardly belligerent manner and reply that his fugitive existence; the loss of his sanctuaries; the annihilation of his men are but the merest foretaste of what is yet to come: to say that to enemies such as he, the initials 'US' will always mean Unconditional Surrender.

Osama has stated his terms. He awaits America's answer.

If there is anything irresponsible going on in American politics today, it is the unwavering and unfounded hatred of George W. Bush by those on the far left.

One the one side, the obvious side, the moveon.org-types won't even listen to reason anymore. They are convinced that Bush is literally the embodiment of all evil, and that he actually wishes harm to come to this country. These are the folks who honestly believe every word that falls from the mouth of Michael Moore, no matter how irrational or unsubstantiated the charge. Bush disenfranchises blacks. Bush killed James Byrd. Bush caused the hurricanes. Bush is responsible for the flu. It's his fault that some tons of weapons that didn't exist were moved from their bunkers before any American set foot in Iraq. The list goes on, with no shred of evidence, no backing of logic.

But the hatred that is driving the election on the left has a worse consequence than its inability to even hear out the ideas of President Bush, and that consequence is the candidacy of John F. Kerry.

I will sit here and wait with baited breath for someone to look me in the face and tell me, without bursting into laughter, that Kerry would be running in any other election. Can anyone say with a straight face that they are actually for Kerry and not simply against Bush? I think not.

And what does that mean? If you truly subscribe to the leftist slogan of "anybody but Bush", then "anybody" is exactly what you're going to get. Kerry has done nothing, NOTHING, of any note at all in 20 years of being a United States senator. Not one idea, not one major piece of legislation. His entire candidacy is based on tearing down whatever George Bush has done in the past 4 years, and replacing it with... well, with nothing.

Kerry has no plans, whatsoever. On Social Security, he opposes private accounts for young people. His alternative? We'll just have to wait. On paying for government-guaranteed healthcare? Still waiting. Tort reform? He doesn't even think it's a problem.

But the worst and most inexcusable absence of a plan has to do with his national security policy, or lack thereof. He has offered nothing in the way of leadership, remarking only that Bush is arrogant, and that foreign leaders would like him better. He says he wants more allies to help in the war on terror, then he belittles those who stand with us now, and refuses to admit that those who oppose us (France and Germany) have categorically stated they will not join us.

He fails his own global test. In 1991, Sen. Kerry voted against the First Gulf War, despite U.N. authorization, a clear act of aggression on the part of Hussein, a cry for help from Arab allies, and even his precious French government on the desert sands with military support. If that doesn't pass his global test, nothing ever will. Kerry supporters: justify that, rationalize that.

No, wait. I'll do it for you. Kerry voted against the first Gulf War for one reason, and one reason only: politics. He doesn't support wars when Republicans are president, because that makes the incumbent look good. He had no qualms about supporting Clinton in Bosnia, Kosovo, and even when Slick Willy himself bombed Iraq. There was no U.N. support for any of these actions. The French did not participate in any meaningful way. Why are huminatirian reasons alone enough to justify the use of force in the former Yugoslavia, but not in Iraq, where the carnage was carried on longer and harsher?

John Kerry, the politician, is absolutely, 100% without substance, initiative, and core-beliefs. He desires power, offering nothing in return. He will say anything, vote anything, to further his own career. Sans ideas, sans conviction, he stands to be elected leader of the free world. Not through any merit of his own, but out of irrational fear of the alternative. He was not the most representative of the party in the Democratic primaries. He was not the most well-liked. He was certainly not the most qualified. But, because of his aforementioned characteristics, he was the most "electable".

What an accomplishment: your party thinks you suck the least, and the American people might just be dumb enough not to notice your record.

Even if you disagree with Bush's policies, the axiom reads: you accept the evil you know, over the evil you don't. And I can't even imagine what harm might come in a world where the President of the United States thinks we aren't at war when black smoke rises from our greatest cities, when dismembered body parts are strewn from Madrid to Bali, and when our enemies are driven with enough fanatical religious zeal as to name us nothing less than Satan himself.

After four years, Bush has made us safer. If things fall ill on Tuesday, and we return to the "ignore it" policy of the 90s, I doubt with all my heart I'll be able to say that in 2008.

Vote for George W. Bush on November 2, 2004.

Bush's big selling point in this campaign is terrorism. How much he's doing to stop terrorism, and keep America safe from terrorists. Bush is doing this to distract us from what's really wrong in this country. Terrorism is NOT the problem he is making it out to be. Do any of us know what it feels like to live in a country truly fraught with terrorism? I don't know about you, but I haven't ever lived in Bethlehem or the Gaza Strip. I've never spent much time in Afghanistan or the Congo or Colombia. So I don't wake up at night to the sound of machine gun fire. I don't avoid public transportation because you never know which bus has a bomb on it. I don't think about terrorists much at all, actually. They really don't figure into my daily life.

But Bush wants you to think they do, and he wants to keep you safe from them. Hurray! He's looking out for us. The problem is that tomorrow, your house is not going to get blown up. Actually, tomorrow your grandma is going to be diagnosed with cancer. And your family won't be able to afford her treatment, because Bush has decided not to keep medicine prices low or make health insurance affordable or medicare as strong as it should be. Your parents have sell your house and move to a smaller one. You have to leave your private school and start going to public school. That's when you realize how terrible your school is. You're using books that are missing pages. You have 53 kids in your class. You never realized this, because you thought Bush had the right idea about cutting funding to failing schools. At least you can still drive your SUV home from school and smile about the low price of gas, thanks to Bush. You roll down the window and take a deep breath, not realizing how toxic the air is because rather than encouraging mass transit, and putting limits on pollutants getting into the air and water, Bush has gotten you worried about terrorists.

Bush is trying to distract you from the things that really matter. He's making you fear something abstract, something the data on is fuzzy at best. We don't really know the full story behind 9/11 or Osama or anything. All we know is that grandma is dying and we can't help her, and children are failing school and their teachers can't help them. But hey, at least we're safe, right? If you vote for Bush you may feel safer at night. But you are only hurting yourself, your family, and the earth.

''I just didn't care because it was between a giant douche and a turd sandwich."

That quote from this past week's South Park sums up my feelings at this point in the election. For the longest time, I had resigned myself to voting for President Bush even though I had major reservations about him because I thought Bush was the lesser of two evils. But in the past few weeks my feelings have changed. I have gotten so fed up with both sides that I cannot in good conscious vote for either candidate. No matter who is elected, this country could be heading into some serious trouble.

There are several reasons why I cannot vote for Kerry. For starters, I believe that he will be too reliant on the UN in his foreign policy and time and again the UN has been shown to be incompetent as a foreign policy tool . In addition, his ideas for turning around the Iraq situation sound very similar to what President Bush is proposing/doing. He does have a plan to bring in more foreign nations to share the burden, but I think that has about as much of a chance for success as Ralph Nader becoming President.

When it comes to domestic policy, Kerry seems to show no desire to slow down the rampant deficit spending with his plan to rescind some of the Bush tax cuts and then use the money gained to spend on new government programs. We cannot continue to spend at this rate without risking a significant devaluation of the dollar abroad, which in the long run could cause a global recession. Another troubling aspect of his domestic policy is his do-nothing plan for social security, which is inching closer to financial armageddon. This hands-off approach Kerry is taking in this issue shows his major flaw as a political candidate, which is that he lacks the courage to do something that could be politically unpopular in the short-run. And that has been the root cause of my angst with John Kerry. He only does something when there might be a political benefit to it, rather than the given action is the right thing to do. He votes for the authorization for the use of force when a majority of Americans favored the war in the Iraq, but when the war became more difficult than envisioned and he wanted to doing anything to beat Howard Dean, he votes against the $87 billion package. Then he criticizes President Bush for not supporting the troops. John Kerry does not have the strong leadership skills necessary to be a successful commander-in-chief.

While I give credit for President Bush for his strong leadership and conviction after 9/11, there can be a time when a leader shows too much conviction and is not willing to change course no matter how bad things are going. It is a very difficult balance for a President. On the one hand, a President should not cut one's losses and try something different at the first hint of failure. On the other hand, a President should not keeping trying the same failed solution over and over again where it gets to the point where no solution can solve that problem. I wonder if that is happening in Iraq. We have dug ourselves such as hole with the slow allocation of funds to rebuild the infrastructure of the country, not enough troops to maintain the security, insufficient Iraqi troop training, and other mismanagement that there might not be any solution out there to get some salvageable way out of this Iraq mess. It has particularly bothered me that President Bush or anyone else in this administration has refused to admit mistakes in this rebuilding debacle. My respect for Bush would expontienal grow if he had once said, ''We've made some mistakes in Iraq, but were doing X to address this problem.'' I believe this refusal to admit mistakes is one of the major reasons Iraq has become such a mess. Bush has been such a believer in his post-war Iraq plans that he has refused to see the errors in his ways .

Another thing that has bothered me about this administration is the reckless spending that would make even some of the most die-hard liberals blush. I understand we are at war and some deficit spending is necessary. But some of the spending has been downright ridiculous. The recent Medicare bill is perhaps one of the worst domestic bills passed in recent memory. The bill had a chance to be really good if President Bush had pursued his original plan of privatizing some of Medicare, which would have increased medical coverage for seniors, and not left the federal government with a huge financial burden. Instead President Bush got a bill passed that greatly increases the government's financial burden and accelerates the time frame when Medicare will become insolvent. I find it troubling that Bush has not vetoed one spending bill during his four years in office. With the Republicans likely to remain in power in the Senate and the House, I am not optimistic that Bush would change his spending ways during a second term.

I have also been turned off by the politics of fear that the Bush campaign has been trying to push. On several occasions, Vice President Cheney has insinuated that a terrorist strike would be more likely during a Kerry Presidency. That's a total cheap shot and has no place in a campaign. The Kerry campaign has been guilty of this as well, especially with Kerry's recent comments about the missing explosives in Iraq, but that does not justify Cheney's attacks.

While I have these major issues with the President, the straw that broke the camel's back for me is my recognition of recent history. More specifically the recent history of the second terms of Presidents. The three last presidents to serve a second term (Clinton, Reagan and Nixon) have all had second terms that failed to match the success of their first term. Part of that had to do with the scandals all three became embroiled in and part of that also had to do with the having the "B-team" as their new advisors, as many of their advisors from the first term do not come back for a second. Hence, I do not expect Bush to improve in a second term and with all the reservations that I have of him now, I just do not see how my reservations about Bush will be addressed in a second term.

So who will I vote for now that I will not vote for Bush or Kerry? I do not know. I'll probably write some one in. Maybe John McCain. Maybe Rudi Giuliani. I do not know. I know I'm basically throwing my vote away, but I do not care. I see my non-vote for both candidates as a way of protesting and showing my disgust with this year's campaign. It should be fun to see these candidates duke it out at least until Thanksgiving as the courts try to sort out the voter shenanigans from both sides.

[The dude in the middle is cruising for a much-deserved bruising... Thanks to Ted for the photo]

just bein' Frank has a good round-up of the charges of voting irregularities

At approximately 9:08am EDT, I checked the three major cable news websites: FoxNews, MSNBC and CNN. I may be wrong, but it is very interesting what these websites deem the most important issue this morning. It may also be telling as to what they feel about the major issues that could affect the election.

For at least the past twelve hours, FoxNews has, front and center, a story and video of Azzam the American threatening fierce attacks against the US that would make people "forget about 9/11."

MSNBC features the long running missing weapons story, this time saying there is a videotape showing that the now-missing explosives were in Iraqi bunkers after the arrival of US troops.

CNN features Arafat's arrival in Paris for this mystery illness.

I, for one, am glad that there is a reprieve in the complete inundation of direct election news.

Watch the clip here!

[warning: contains some bleeped out vulgarity-- in other words, if you were not going to watch the video from just reading above, you definitely are going to now]

"The parade organizer says it never occurred to her that she would have to inform people not to appear nude in a kids' parade."

What's going on here?

Witness this conversation between myself and a friend:


TheProducer74 (11:34:39 PM): brb, going to see the tail-end of the eclipse
TheProducer74 (11:49:57 PM): back

thefriend (11:51:06 PM): i don't see how i can get any work done at all until this thing is over

TheProducer74 (11:52:12 PM): what, the election?

thefriend (11:52:31 PM): what else

TheProducer74 (11:52:45 PM): the lunar eclipse :-)

thefriend (11:53:26 PM): i haven't seen that

TheProducer74 (11:57:51 PM): if you go outside you can catch the tail end of the eclipse

thefriend (11:58:30 PM): eh, so there's no moon
thefriend (11:58:43 PM): is it really all that thrilling?

TheProducer74 (11:58:48 PM): jeez dude
TheProducer74 (11:58:51 PM): there is a moon
TheProducer74 (11:58:59 PM): but we can't see quite all of it right now
TheProducer74 (11:59:08 PM): and you can see the earth's shadow!

thefriend (11:59:12 PM): thanks mr wizard

TheProducer74 (11:59:12 PM): how often does that happen?

thefriend (11:59:21 PM): it's called "day"

TheProducer74 (11:59:28 PM): no appreciation for the fine science of astronomy I see

thefriend (11:59:28 PM): no moon

TheProducer74 (11:59:37 PM): no, we don't see the earth's shadow during the day

thefriend (11:59:44 PM): we see no moon

TheProducer74 (11:59:57 PM): it's like a sudden realization that the earth is more than this flat surface in its own world
TheProducer74 (12:00:07 AM): damn you and your obtuse simplicity ;-)

thefriend (12:00:38 AM): i'm not really known for being, um, what's the word i'm looking for?
thefriend (12:00:42 AM): artsy?

TheProducer74 (12:00:52 AM): whatever :-)

This lady is a walking contradiction...

The late Dr. C.A. Tripp has a forthcoming book, The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln, which says that Abraham Lincoln most likely was gay. Read the LA Weekly article about it.

Among the facts leading to this conclusion...

- Lincoln's stepmother said that Abe "never took much interest in the girls."

- According to biographer and gay activist Jim Kepner, Lincoln slept in the same bed with Joshua Speed for four years, when both men were in their 20s

- This relationship with Speed was explored by acclaimed biographer Carl Sandburg who wrote in 1926 one of the most definitive biography of Lincoln

- Tripp writes of letters between Speed and Lincoln; Speed once wrote, "No two men were ever so intimate." And Lincoln signed his letters to Speed, "yours forever," a salutation reserved for letters to Speed, and not even used in letters to his wife


- "Tripp's book is remarkable and precedent-shattering because, for the first time, he restores names and faces (more than just Speed's) to a number of those previously invisible homosexual companions and love objects of the most venerated of America's presidents, among them, Henry C. Whitney; the young Billy Greene, a Salem contemporary of Lincoln's and another bedmate (who admired Lincoln's thighs); Nat Grigsby; and A.Y. Ellis."

- One of these love interests, in particular, was with a Captain Derickson, of Lincoln's bodyguard company: "Lincoln's seduction of Dickerson was more than successful. Tripp discovered a forgotten volume of Union Army history, an account of The Pennsylvania Volunteers, Second Regiment, Bucktail Brigade, published in 1895 by Derickson's commander, Lieutenant Colonel Thomas Chamberlin, who was historian of the Bucktail Survivors Association, and in which he recounted:

'Captain Derickson, in particular, advanced so far in the President's confidence and esteem that in Mrs. Lincoln's absence he frequently spent the night at his cottage [at the summer White House], sleeping in the same bed with him, and -- it is said -- making use of his Excellency's night-shirt! Thus began an intimacy that continued unbroken until the following spring, when Captain Derickson was appointed provost marshal of the Nineteenth Pennsylvania District, with headquarters in Meadville.'"


You be the judge. Oh yeah, and Lincoln wrote a poem about a boy marrying another boy. Just thought I'd mention that.

Ok, here's a disclaimer: right now Drudge has this headline, and it is linked to a Washington Times article. But when you click the article, a blank Wash. Times template comes up. As of now, the veracity of the story must be questioned.

Update: Ok, the link now works, and the Times article is up. However, I'm still a skeptic. The primary (only?) source for the article is a government official-- namely, John A. Shaw, the deputy undersecretary of defense for international technology security.

Further, he does not have conclusive proof of Russian involvement in hiding the weapons, but rather is "almost certain" based on reliable evidence from European intelligence agencies.

I'll have more. If this story pans out, this is huge, utterly huge. Russian complicity in hiding Iraqi arms changes the dynamic. Maybe this is why Putin has been sucking up to Bush for the last month.

Update 2: Indirectly I have a military source which says the weapons were in the cache when the troops got there... hmmm

Put simply the new iPod Photo is identical to the normal iPods, except it features a rich color display capable of displaying 25 thumbnailed photos at once, or of course one full size photo, and the device can automatically sync your entire digital photo collection. (Oh yeah, and the new iPod has three hours longer battery life and includes a 60 GB model.)



At first I did not see the great utility in this, nor the justification to pay $100 for the same size (40GB) iPod Photo over the music-only iPod. But then it hit me: this is a small revolution in digital photography.

The great advantage in digital photography has always been flexibility. A photographer can delete photos on the go, quickly store photos on a computer, transfer photos to a friend, manipulate them in Photoshop, etc. However, the great missing link in this flexibility has always been visually sharing these photos.

Until now, to show photos to a friend you either had to create and host a webpage of them, have a laptop and make the friend handle its bulk just to see your photos, or (gasp!) make prints of them.

But now, you can always have an up-to-date and complete collection of your photos with you wherever you go, along with your music. Showing your Vegas trip off is now a breeze.

And of course, the full number of uses for this new iPod will not be known until it's been out long enough, for pioneering software solutions to arrive. Imagine displaying full color and detailed maps with your driving directions, associating a person's photo with their contact information, etc. etc. The question is will it sell? The answer is yes.

Well, not quite. According to this Reuters article:

Scientists in Australia have found a new species of hobbit-sized humans who lived about 18,000 years ago on an Indonesian island in a discovery that adds another piece to the complex puzzle of human evolution.

What's next? Maybe they'll find elves and dwarves :-)

We don't know how bad his health is, but Arafat's condition is highly relevant to the peace process in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

An aside: I must admit that I feel it somewhat macabre to speak of a man's poor health in these terms. This is why I did not provide any commentary with the news of Rehnquist's cancer surgery. We have become so uber-political that even a person's health is not but another piece in the grand political puzzle. Sad.

Why speculate, when you can talk to the terrorists themselves? Take a look at this excerpt from this Washington Times article:

"If the U.S. Army suffered numerous humiliating losses, [Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John] Kerry would emerge as the superman of the American people," said Mohammad Amin Bashar, a leader of the Muslim Scholars Association, a hard-line clerical group that vocally supports the resistance.

Resistance leader Abu Jalal boasted that the mounting violence had already hurt Mr. Bush's chances.

"American elections and Iraq are linked tightly together," he told a Fallujah-based Iraqi reporter. "We've got to work to change the election, and we've done so. With our strikes, we've dragged Bush into the mud."

Mowafaq Al-Tai, a London-educated architect and intellectual, said different types of resistance fighters have different views of the U.S. election.

The most pro-Kerry, he said, are the former Saddam Hussein loyalists — Ba'ath Party members and others who think Washington might scale back its ambitions for Iraq if Mr. Kerry wins, allowing them to re-enter civic life.

The most pro-Bush, he said, are the foreign extremists. "They prefer Bush, because he's a provocative figure, and the more they can push people to the extreme, the better for their case."

Drudge, of course, distorted this story by only taking the quotes of terrorists supporting John Kerry. How many bloggers followed Drudge like sheep on this story? Incidentally, the actual Washington Times headline for this article, "Terrorists hope to defeat Bush through Iraq violence" is also one-sided and incomplete.

Update: sorry to say this, but count Daniel as one of those who followed Drudge like a sheep on this one

Don't forget about the ads on the right side of the page. Clicking them gets me ad revenue for the site. Of course, don't click them if you don't have at least a tiny passing interest in what they are about. That would be a form of click-fraud, which I highly discourage. But I have clicked them a few times, and they can be interesting.

Check out the following blogs...

The Disclaimer (a fellow law student at IU)

hope's taiwan life (a friend of a friend)

Metamorphasis (another friend of a friend)

Glenn Reynolds, author of Instapundit and affectionately called "Papa-Blogger," has a common sense column up about blogging and journalism at Tech Central Station. The most powerful stuff:

And when "making" media is cheap, and an unlimited supply of people are "making it," what happens to journalism? Something that journalists may not like: Journalism, right now, is in the process of reverting to its earlier status as an activity, rather than a profession.

Which brings me to my last prediction. Actually, it's one I've made before: "[I]f Big Media let their position go without a fight to keep it by fair means or foul, they'll be the first example of a privileged group that did so. So beware." I think we're already beginning to see signs of that backlash, in the wake of the humiliation visited on Big Media by RatherGate -- and the press establishment's general lack of enthusiasm for free speech for others (as evidenced by its support for campaign finance "reform") suggests that it'll be happy to see alternative media muzzled. You want to keep this media revolution going? Be ready to fight for it.

I think that the Big Media will have to adjust to the presence of the blogosphere, but they need not fear being replaced by it, as Reynolds would have us believe. Blogs do very little original reporting, and they don't have the resources to do so in an organized fashion.

To lay your head down
upon the clouds of your dreams
New journeys await

I'm sick of politics. I'm sick of this election. I'm sick of hearing about this election from others. I'm sick of writing about this election!

Check back with Daily Contentions on a regular basis before November 2, for the latest election news and commentary :-)

But seriously, after this thing is through on Nov. 2 (and let's pray that the election is uncontested), I will definitely definitely, most definitely, be ready to change gears a bit.

After a rift developed between the newspaper's publisher and the editorial board over who to endorse, the paper printed the following statement:

"We believe our readers are perfectly capable of making an informed, rational decision by their own lights ... and we strongly urge them to do so."

Thank you! Finally a newspaper admits that its readers are capable of forming an enlightened opinion of their own, rather than needing the paternalistic drivel of an editorial board. Also, this instance exposes how much influence a publisher may have in an editorial decision such as this.

[Thanks to Daniel for the link.]

A lot of stink has been made about the missing explosives cache in Iraq. Some fearmongerers are saying that maybe the terrorists are going to use these explosives near the U.S. election.

But the real story is that the cache was missing before U.S. soldiers even made it to the site 18 months ago! The story was not initially reported this way, probably to emphasize/synthesize a criticism of the U.S.'s handling of Iraq post major combat operations.

The terrorists probably have had these weapons for well over a year and have not used them against us; I refuse to suddenly be afraid now.

UC has the full story.

This column by David Shribman, relating to baseball, life, and Boston is a beautiful and moving read. I highly recommend it. Shribman is the editor of the Pittsburg Post-Gazette and taught one of my courses 2 years ago called "Politics and the Media." Here is the money 'graph:

So by now you know that I can't think of my childhood without thinking about the Red Sox, and that, now that the Red Sox are in the World Series, I can't think about anything but my dad, who died not quite seven weeks ago. You probably have heard about the Red Sox and their dance with destiny, or rather how that dance is always interrupted somehow, maybe by the Yankees, maybe by the National League champions, maybe by the curse of Babe Ruth, maybe by the poetry and mystery and awful beauty of life itself. All of these remembrances, and I can hear them being typed wherever Red Sox fans live, have to note that the Bostons haven't won the World Series in 86 years.

Undoubtedly Autumn is most awesome of the seasons. The climate is usually very pleasant, yet also exciting; the temperature is neither too hot nor too cold, yet an invigorating cool breeze sometimes ripples through the leaves awakening your senses. Oh and speaking of the leaves! No other time of the year can one observe the cornucopia of colors that are present during the Fall. Oh, and one more thing: fall is football season-- giving us plenty of reasons to hang around outside for large amounts of time.

Some criticize Autumn saying that the dying of the leaves is depressing-- but these people are shallow :-) Autumn is a metaphor for the resilience of life. The leaves die but the trees live on cloaking the portent of new life to come. To enjoy the Fall requires more depth than enjoying the obtuse symbolism of Spring, or the monotonous pleasantness of summer, or the ponderous introspection of Winter. To enjoy Autumn is Hope.

[ironically, I was listening to Vivaldi's "Spring" while writing this post; perhaps I am too obtuse to recognize the beauty of Vivaldi's "Autumn" :-)]


...Notre Dame in the Fall; click image to see more images courtesy Unlearning College

From John Kerry's statements in the first and third debates, it is clear that he has confused separating faith from politics, with separating church and state. The two are certainly not equivalent, as he would have us believe. In a NYTimes editorial, Denver Archbishop Charles Chaput, makes the point clear:

Democracy depends on people of conviction expressing their views, confidently and without embarrassment. This give-and-take is an American tradition, and religious believers play a vital role in it. We don't serve our country - in fact we weaken it intellectually - if we downplay our principles or fail to speak forcefully out of some misguided sense of good manners.

Hat-tip to just bein' Frank, for the link.

Homosexual activists often criticize Evangelical Christians, charging their ignorance of homosexuality and their lack of fairness in examining the homosexual person.

But, as the GayPatriot points out, the shoe should also be on the other foot:

I think it imperative that those who wish to improve the social situation of gay men and lesbians try to better understand the evangelical movement...

Too many gay people, particularly our activists, assume these Christians are motivated by hate, by a desire to subjugate gay people and other "undesirables." ... To be sure, I am troubled by their attitudes toward gay people. But, having met a number of them, I realize that if anything, they are motivated by love and the universal human longing to find meaning in this confusing world. And a search for moral purpose and guideline to help them fulfill that purpose in their lives.

As gay people, we too need to find meaning in our lives. Many of us could use some moral guidelines to restrain the sexual license our subculture encourages.

So, for now, I will say simply, take seriously these evangelicals. Don't idly dismiss them as simple-minded gay-baiters. Understand that their message appeals to a deep need in each individual, the need to find a larger purpose, the need to be part of a community, our longing to connect with the Divine...

[emphasis added]

Amen.

MSNBC has a headline up, but no article yet.

Update: here's the article

Unlearning College has the story. Joe thinks it's a huge issue for Kerry nearing the election. I don't. People are too used to politicians getting the facts wrong in debates.

Bill Clinton, the eternal narcissist, simply refuses to leave the spotlight. First we hear that he wants to be the next Secretary General of the UN (the real reason we don't want Kerry to be elected).

Now Bill's on the road campaigning for Kerry. Will he help or hurt John Kerry? Hell, I don't know. I would just like to see him be quiet for once.

This one is too easy:

One word to describe the accuracy of my prediction: terrible.

In fact, I am thus far only 2 for 8-- having only correctly predicted the wins over Navy and Stanford. To my credit, I got Washington confused for Washington St.

However, my prediction for ND's final record (6-5) is looking pretty good, with Tennessee and USC waiting to play us at their respective home fields.

Ty should go bye bye. Bring on Gruden!

...the Iowa Electronics Market

The IEM, put on by the Iowa Tippie College of Business, allows people to bet real money in a market on political elections and other events. The theory is that these markets will be better predictors, because people have more riding on the line. And thus far, the theory seems to be right-- in its nearly 2 decades, the IEM has only been wrong once in its election predictions.

So, what does the IEM have to say about the 2004 elections? Bush and Kerry in a dead heat... Republicans pick up seats in the House and they pick up seats in the senate.

Remember John Kerry's awkward mention of Mary Cheney being a lesbian, during the last debate? Well, the NY Observer has the real text of those remarks:

"We're all God's children. And I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was. She's being who she was born as. Which is a lesbian. All of us need to feel comfortable being who we are, even if someone happens to be a lesbian, which is what Dick Cheney's daughter is. Even if a young woman prefers to have sex with other women, like Dick Cheney's daughter does, she should feel comfortable. Being a lesbian. This really underscores the problem with the American health care system. It's not working for the American family. And it's gotten worse under President Bush over the course of the last years. Especially if you're a lesbian, like Dick Cheney's daughter..."

[thanks to Andrew Sullivan for the link]

A must view.

"An Outporing of Pain, Channeled Via Politics":

"Stolen Honor: Wounds That Never Heal," the highly contested anti-Kerry documentary, should not be shown by the Sinclair Broadcast Group. It should be shown in its entirety on all the networks, cable stations and on public television.

Now that's a damn good lead. Good enough, in fact, that I know that I need not sell this column anymore for you to read it. But I've said enough for the day-- maybe.

You thought you knew me.
The world gone upside down,
and now I am you.


[Check out other poems like this one in the 'poetry' section]