How stupid do they think people are?

This story from Las Vegas Voter Registrations Possibly Trashed (via Josh Marshall) says a company called Voters Outreach registered hundreds of people, then tore up the democrat registrations.
Now, did they actually think that no one would tell? And did they actually think that their financing by the RNC would not be revealed? Its getting pretty wierd down south.

Batteries not included?

When Jay Leno asked Edwards what was the lump on Bush's back during the first debate, Edwards replied "His battery?" It brought down the house.

Second Doonsbury reference

Here is today's Doonsbury reference. ""An analysis of Bush's war in Iraq" from what his Honest Voices Reading List -- WSJ reporter Fassihi's e-mail to friends She writes about the reality of American occupation for reporters - who do not dare to leave their hotels- and for the people of Baghdad:
America's last hope for a quick exit? The Iraqi police and National Guard
units we are spending billions of dollars to train. The cops are being
murdered by the dozens every day-over 700 to date -- and the insurgents are infiltrating their ranks. The problem is so serious that the U.S. military has allocated $6 million dollars to buy out 30,000 cops they just trained to get rid of them quietly.
As for reconstruction: firstly it's so unsafe for foreigners to operate that
almost all projects have come to a halt . . .
Oil dreams? Insurgents disrupt oil flow routinely as a result of sabotage
and oil prices have hit record high of $49 a barrel [this piece was published on Sept. 29]. Who did this war exactly benefit? Was it worth it? Are we safer because Saddam is holed up and Al Qaeda is running around in Iraq? . . .
. . . One could argue that Iraq is already lost beyond salvation. For those of us on the ground it's hard to imagine what if any thing could salvage it from its violent downward spiral. The genie of terrorism, chaos and mayhem has been unleashed onto this country as a result of American mistakes and it can't be put back into a bottle.
. . . I asked a 28-year-old engineer if he and his family would participate in
the Iraqi elections since it was the first time Iraqis could to some degree
elect a leadership. His response summed it all: "Go and vote and risk being blown into pieces or followed by the insurgents and murdered for cooperating with the Americans? For what? To practice democracy? Are you joking?"

What do you want to bet . . .

. . . that one of Rove's promised "October Surprises" will be this announcement (drum roll, please): Rumsfeld will report, following his trip to Iraq, that things are going so swimmingly and there are so many Iraqi troops now that a substantial number of US troops can come home immediately after Iraq's January elections (cymbals clash!)

Shameless Agitator - great blog

Great posts on Shameless Agitator -- as well as some new "bulge" photos, Andrea excerpts important passages from the NYT interview with Kerry about his war on terror.

Here is the Doonsbury reference

In today's Doonsbury, he refers readers to "an overview of how well Bush has served republican principles by Dwight Eisenhower's son" -- here is the article: Why I will vote for John Kerry for President After criticizing Bush's record, John Eisenhower writes "Sen. Kerry, in whom I am willing to place my trust, has demonstrated that he is courageous, sober, competent, and concerned with fighting the dangers associated with the widening socio-economic gap in this country. I will vote for him enthusiastically."

Dred Scott case = Roe v Wade = making abortion illegal

In last night's debate, Bush made a bizarre reference to the Dred Scott case in the mid-1800s as an example of the kind of decision a new Supreme Court justice should or should not be making -- I couldn't really follow it, not being an expert on American constitutional history.
But now it is explained -- Paperwight's Fair Shot explains that the Dred Scott case is being used by anti-abortion groups now to compare their cause to the cause of abolishing slavery.
So Bush was speaking in code to the radical religious right, promising them that if reelected his pick for the Supreme Court would be someone who would want to overturn Roe v Wade.
This is getting seriously wierd, isn't it?

Still feeling a draft

The draft question came up at the debate last night, and Bush said how a volunteer army was working great. "Forget all this talk about a draft. We're not going to have a draft so long as I'm the president."
But people do not believe him - Yahoo! News - Poll: Youth Tie Bush, Draft Reinstatement
Why?
Well, two reasons really: the first is pretty obvious -- the Pentagon IS actually making plans to reinstate the draft, likely focusing on people with so-called critical and special skills.
And Bush has lied about everything else to do with the Iraq War, so why would he be telling the truth about this? As Representative Tim Ryan put it during the House debate "We're not trying to scare kids. This president's foreign policy is what's scaring the kids of this country. And if people have said today, "Why are people believing this, why are people believing this big Internet hoax?" - well, it's the same people that told us Saddam Hussein had something to do with 9/11. Same people that told us Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Same people that told us we were gonna be able to use the oil for reconstruction money. Same people that told us that we'd be greeted as liberators, not occupiers. Same people, same president, that told us the Taliban is gone. Same president that told us that Poland is our ally two days before they pull out. Same president that tells us Iraq is going just great. Same president that tells us the economy is going just great. Same people that told us the tax cut was gonna create millions of jobs. Same people that told us that the Medicare program only costs $400 billion, when it really cost $540 billion. So please forgive us for not believing what you're saying. Please forgive the students of this country for not believing what you're saying. Not one thing, not one thing about this war that has been told to the American people, or that has been told to these college students, has been true. Not one thing."
I think its worth noting this, as well:
In spite of how firmly Bush said during the debate that he wouldn't reinstate a draft, he did leave himself an out. He stated during the debate " . . . the all-volunteer Army is best suited to fight the new wars of the 21st century, which is to be specialized . . ." and he said "The all-volunteer Army works. It works particularly when we pay our troops well . . . [also mentioning housing and less rotations. Concluding with] . . .(We} will be more likely to be able to keep people in the all-volunteer Army."
The unstated continuation -- but, if we aren't able to keep people, and if we can't get people with the right specializations to enlist, then, gosh darn it, I guess I just might have to . . .

What? Me Worry?

Bush continued his Alfred E Newman channeling last night.
Go read Josh Marshall on the "mistakes" answer -- Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall "In the Bush world you never admit mistakes. The only mistakes the president can think of are the times he appointed people who do admit mistakes -- who put reality above loyalty to the president . . . recognizing mistakes . . . is how you prevent mistakes from metastasizing into disasters. Which all explains a great deal about how we got where we are now in Iraq." Don't make the mistake of voting for this man.
Kerry, on the other hand, came across as more presidential than ever before.

Crying havoc

And letting loose the dogs of war -- on Kerry
Isn't this disgusting? Bush: Kerry Would 'Weaken' U.S. : ". . . A Bush adviser said the president hopes to change the dynamics of the race with more biting attacks on Kerry's record and trustworthiness and on what Bush charges is Kerry's reluctance to use U.S. military force to defeat terrorism. The strategy is aimed at stoking public fears about terrorism, raising new concerns about Kerry's ability to protect Americans and reinforcing Bush's image as the steady anti-terrorism candidate, aides said . . . " [emphasis mine]
They can't raise the terror alert level anymore, because no one would believe them, so they send out notices to schools warning about Beslan-style attacks.
They can't claim anymore that the Iraq war was justified, and they can't talk about how Iraq proves their preemptive war doctrine, so they attack Kerry because he wouldn't start another baseless, unjustified war.
They can't claim fiscal conservatism, or even competence, and their own medicare and education reforms are an unpopular mess, so they lie about Kerry's plans.
They can't talk about how they're destroyed the capacity of the US military, so they are trying to imply that its Kerry who wants a new draft.
The one thing they haven't talked about, funnily enough, is Kerry's own health -- and one blog (which I now cannot find) noted today that Bush did not take his usual August physical this year -- one could speculate that Bush is a serial avoider of August health check ups. Earlier this spring there were stories around about how Bush's mental health was deteriorating, and the rumour is now circulating that in the last debate Bush was wearing a secret earpiece to help him answer the questions. So maybe his health is one area that Bush does not want to have to answer any questions about.

Shorter Bob Novak

Shorter Bob Novak: Getting out is the silent U.S. policy "You don't have to vote for Kerry if you want to get the troops out of Iraq -- Bush really wants to get them out, too, but the poor guy just can't really SAY so right now. So don't worry, you just go right ahead and vote for our boy Bush."

The tiger or the tiger?

Which do you prefer, Republicans -- a Vice-President who is so senile that he cannot remember the numerous times he met Edwards, or a Vice-President so cynical that he thinks he can just lie to America with impunity? Its not much of a choice, is it?

Computer jacks

For the last month, I have been so annoyed that my computer was working so slowly. Its the reason I haven't been posting as much some days, because it was just so damned slow to surf and to create new posts.
I thought the difference was my laptop, which had to have a new hard drive installed at the end of August, when my original one fried and died.
But, also at the end of August, we had moved some stuff around in the house to create a "home office" room, where I had Sask Tel install a new computer jack.
So on Sunday I had to move my desk temporarily, to turn our home office back into a guest room for Thanksgiving, and thus I had to plug my laptop back into its original outlet in what is now our TV room.
And all of a sudden, my laptop is working about 50 times faster.
So, time to phone Sask Tel and ask them WTF did you install? I had no idea that there could be such a difference just because of the computer jack -- I think I've got either a defective jack or a bad line -- anyone have any suggestions?

Cheney, Rice, Powell, Bush - liars all

This New York Times editorial pulls it all together -- The Nuclear Bomb That Wasn't.
"The more we learn about the way Mr. Bush paved the road to war, the more it becomes disturbingly clear that if he was not aware that he was feeding misinformation to the world, he was about the only one in his circle who had not been clued in . . . It's shocking that with all this information readily available, Secretary of State Colin Powell still went before the United Nations to repeat the bogus claims, an appearance that gravely damaged his reputation. It's even more disturbing that Vice President Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, had not only failed to keep the president from misleading the American people, but had also become the chief proponents of the "mushroom cloud" rhetoric. . . If Ms. Rice did her job and told Mr. Bush how ludicrous the case was for an Iraqi nuclear program, then Mr. Bush terribly misled the public. If not, she should have resigned for allowing her boss to start a war on the basis of bad information and an incompetent analysis."

Go Riders Go!

So we're sitting around watching The Score last night when the numbers flashed by on the ticker -- Saskatchewan 34, Montreal 19, 10 minutes to play.
WTF? What did that say? We had to sit through the ticker cycle again, just to see it, just to make sure.
If there was one game just about everyone had pretty well written off for the Riders this year, it was this one. No matter that Danny Barrett had pointed out that they had only lost to Montreal previously this season, twice I think, by a combined total of 10 points. Yeah, but when was the last time the Riders won against the Als?
Well, the miracle happened -- Kenton Keith runs for 146 yards as the Roughriders beat Montreal 35-19
I'm pretty sure my brother was down to Regina for that game, so he'll tell us all about it when he drops over today. Ah, sweet victory! Good job, guys!