meta-roj

hart’s location, new hampshire, 15-15-1 (bush-kerry-nader). in 2000 hart’s location went 17-13 for bush.

update: dixville notch went 19-7 (bush-kerry). 2000 was 21-5-1. the registered voting population in dixville notch is 11 republicans, 2 democrats and 13 independents.

arch-terrorist bin laden has weighed in on the american presidential election. crafty little bugger, and with precise timing no less. the terrorists… the base (and by “the base” i mean al qaida, not karl rove’s “the base” – that’s for another day…) wins either way…

scenario a) bush wins. al qaida gets their recruiting poster child american imperalist president to wave in front of poor muslims and build up their base.

scenario b) kerry wins. al qaida gets to go in front of their exiting recruits and show off how powerful they are, that they can influence the american election.

crafty indeed.

yet another example that crossed my desk. truly, the bush administration is willing to do “whatever it takes” – spam, doctored photos, appropriated endorsements from veterans, blocking opposition phone lines and so much more to keep their positions of power.

Bush Campaign Acknowledges Ad Was Doctored [reuters, october 28, 2004]

President Bush’s campaign acknowledged on Thursday that a television ad depicting soldiers listening to Bush speak had been doctored so that some of the faces of the soldiers appear more than once.

Released five days before Election Day, the ad was called, “Whatever It Takes” and had been touted by Bush advisers as a personal message from the president talking about the war on terror.

and in classic rovian fashion, it is plausibly deniable. the editors did it, not the campaign.

i remember bush talking about how he wanted to get “around the filters” and get his message directly to the people. i guess that rule doesn’t apply to science.

NASA: Bush Stifles Global Warming Evidence [ap via abc news, october 27, 2004]

“In my more than three decades in government, I have never seen anything approaching the degree to which information flow from scientists to the public has been screened and controlled as it is now,” [director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York ] James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience.

can you hold your breath for two weeks? how ’bout a month?

already, technical difficulties reported in florida (server down), and lawsuits are flying, but (in some places, at least) you can now start casting your ballot and it might even get counted.

Wise Confuse-us say erection that last whole month keep hurting for years

Without a Doubt [new york times, october 17, 2004. registration blah]

The nation’s founders, smarting still from the punitive pieties of Europe’s state religions, were adamant about erecting a wall between organized religion and political authority. But suddenly, that seems like a long time ago. George W. Bush — both captive and creator of this moment — has steadily, inexorably, changed the office itself. He has created the faith-based presidency.

better to read the whole thing. drop by bugmenot for registration, but read it. seriously.

the elder republicans are stepping up, if slowly…

Ex-Security Adviser Rips Bush Diplomacy [ap via abc, oct 16, 2004]

The national security adviser under the first President Bush says the current president acted contemptuously toward NATO and Europe after Sept. 11 and is trying to cooperate now out of desperation to “rescue a failing venture” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Brent Scowcroft, a mentor to the current national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, also said in an interview published in England that Bush is inordinately influenced by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

the original article was published on october 14 in the financial times, but that’s locked up behind a registration process.

they’ll spam and they’ll quote out of context and they’ll even use names without permission. but the current of deceit runs even deeper in this little river in southeast asia….

a washington animal has the latest.

and, by the way, they still haven’t paid for their ads in my space.

it’s a good thing someone is writing while i’m not….

supporting kerry anyway.

barlow brings a bit of german perspective on the american election…

That’s how it looks to the Germans too. The idea that we might actually re-elect George Bush is unfathomable – indeed, inexcusable – to them. As one of them put it to me, “We can forgive you for electing him once. As we ought to know, any electorate can make a tragic mistake. But if you elect him twice, we will start fearing you Americans as much as we currently fear your government.”

The Case Against George W. Bush

i’m not sure if this essay makes me a rationalist or a “crypto-Islamist car bomber” but i will not be voting for bush (had you figured that out by now?).