Don't Forget - America Kicks Ass (posting from Anonymous Canadian)

I'm a Canadian. Born and raised. And I only really know the U.S.A. through your movies, which I've watched for as long I can remember. Those movies never said that America always wins. Not to me. They said that good always triumphs over evil. So what if the good guys were always waving an American flag? That's just the surface. It never mattered because the real message of these American myths is simple and good. It doesn't matter how many techs the bad guys have, how much money, or how clever they think they are. They always lose. And the good guys never lose heart. Rocky had the crap pounded out of him in Rocky 1 and he lost the match but he fought to the end and he fought hard. In part 2 he came back and won. Do you think he would have given up and moved North? Do you think Bush will give up? Moving North, I wouldn't put past him. [thanks to Donna]

Shoplifter Surrenders After Chased by 260 lb. Off-Duty Police Officer in a Shrek Costume

Const. Mark Smallbones, a six-year veteran of the Lethbridge Police Service, was on his way to a Halloween party Saturday when he stopped to pick up some beer. The chase was on after the bald and burly officer, skin painted green and accompanied by a stuffed donkey, saw two people swipe a couple of bottles and flee.

A bizzare pattern of impossible anomalies

This has long been known : the welter of financial ties of Diebold and ES&S to the radical religious right (with stakeholders currently, it seems, on the secretive CNP) and Bob Fitrakis notes : "Wherever Diebold and ES&S go, irregularities and historic Republican upsets follow." Howard Ahmanson was the original funder for Bob and Todd Urosevich's Data Mark,which became ES&S, Bob later left to head Diebold ,maker of HAVA Act mandated touch screen voting machines used in Ohio and Florida and elsewhere....Ahmanson is a Christian Reconstructionist (a form of Dominionism ) who has talked of imposing Biblical law on the US - including the death penalty for gays and drunkards - and is also a main funder of the Chalcedon Foundation. However, the most bizzare patterns of anomalies in Florida came not from touch-screen but optical scan machines. Florida's central vote tabulator also is Diebold made, raising questions on the a bizzare pattern of anomalies in which a large number of counties in Florida had increases in Republicans votes over expected levels - by an overall average of 50% to 100% and - in one county, as high as 700%. Meanhwhile, here are graphs of variance between exit poll results for battleground states. [from MetaFilter.com]

Disenchanted Americans flood immigration website

Canada's official immigration website is receiving a record number of visits since Bush won a second term, and most of the hits are from the U.S.
Within hours of Bush's acceptance speech Wednesday, six times more Americans than usual surfed the site.
There were about 179,000 visitors to the site Wednesday, almost twice the previous one-day record set last year. About 64 per cent of those visitors were Americans.
Skilled workers
A spokesperson for Citizenship and Immigration said Thursday that the most-visited pages were the ones that let people check if they would qualify to move to Canada as skilled workers.

Melting ice breaks polar food chain

Research has disclosed that numbers of the tiny shrimp-like creatures that prop up the Antarctic marine food chain have fallen by 80 per cent since the 1970s, creating food shortages that are endangering larger animals and birds.
NI_MPU('middle');
The decline appears to have been caused by the loss of sea-ice around the frozen continent, and that is believed to be an effect of global warming.
Sea ice is critical to the life cycle of krill, as the ice shelters their larvae from predators and is rich in the algae on which they feed. The ocean around the mountainous continuation of the Andes within the Antarctic Circle, known as the Antarctic Peninsula, is an important breeding ground for krill. It is warming at one of the fastest rates of any location on the planet, with a corresponding reduction in the extent of sea-ice around it.

Great Trick or Optical Illusion?

Keep your eye on the dragon. [from LinkyDinky.com]

On Shelves Tuesday: "Selling Women Short" by Liza Featherstone

“SELLING WOMEN SHORT is a bargain even Wal-Mart can’t match. Not only does it tell the story of the amazing women who’ve sued Wal-Mart for sex discrimination, but it offers an unprecedented glimpse into Wal-Mart's pseudo-Christian, ultra-macho, corporate culture.”
-Barbara Ehrenreich, New York Times Bestselling author of Nickel & Dimed

“Featherstone returns to the women of Wal-Mart what the corporation would steal: their humanity, their insight, their voice. These workers’ fight is our fight. No one in today’s economy is unaffected by their struggle for livable wages and workplace respect.”
-Laura Flanders, author of Bushwomen: Tales of a Cynical Species

“Liza Featherstone has written a women’s rights manifesto for the corporate age and a Fast Food Nation for the retail world – utterly engrossing, sometimes shocking and deeply inspiring. A devastating story, superbly told. This is a breakthrough book.”
-Naomi Klein, author of No Logo

“If Wal-Mart was the great business story of the nineties, its workers may well be the big story of the following decade. SELLING WOMEN SHORT is a vivid primer on this extraordinary empire, the lives of its employees, and the real-world costs of modern business.”
- Jeffrey Toobin, author of A Vast Conspiracy

“Liza Featherstone’s eloquent, unsparing page-turner delivers a sharp poke in the eye to one of America’s worst corporations. Here’s one book I'll bet you can’t buy at Wal-Mart!”
-Jim Hightower, author of Thieves in High Places

Students camp out to protest Bush

About 85 high school students who say they are upset about the direction the nation is heading were camping out in the school library, demanding a visit from Republican Party leaders.
Students began their protest Thursday and school officials said they could stay through Friday when representatives of their Democratic congressman, U.S. Rep. Mark Udall, and U.S. Senator-elect Ken Salazar, are expected to visit them.
However the students, who brought sleeping bags and food to last through the weekend, said they also wanted to meet with representatives of school superintendent George Garcia along with Republicans Gov. Bill Owens and U.S. Rep. Marilyn Musgrave, who sponsored the failed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

Study: Vaccine Protects Against Cancer

Four years after getting the vaccine, 94 percent of women were protected from infection with the virus that causes most cervical cancers and none had developed worrisome precancerous conditions, a study showed.
"We're thrilled about these results. The immune responses seem to be really long-lasting," said Dr. Eliav Barr, who leads development of the vaccine for Merck & Co. The company plans to seek U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval next year for an expanded version of the vaccine that also could be used to prevent genital warts in both women and men.
The new study was funded by Merck and led by University of Washington researchers who presented results Monday at a meeting of the American Society for Microbiology.

Bush News Conference Transcript

BUSH: Now that I've got the will of the people at my back, I'm going to start enforcing the one-question rule. That was three questions.
...QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. President. How will you go about bringing people together? Will you seek a consensus candidate for the Supreme Court if there's an opening? Will you bring some Democrats into your Cabinet?
BUSH: Yes. Again, you violated the one-question rule right off the bat. Obviously, you didn't listen to the will of the people.

Movie Lawsuits on the Way

Dan Glickman, president and CEO of the Motion Picture Association of America, said that its member studios will file lawsuits beginning Nov. 16 and will seek damages and injunctive relief. Knowingly distributing copyright films carries penalties of up to $150,000 per film.
...One P2P expert said the movie industry has learned from the blunders of the music industry, which waited years before cracking down on file traders.
"My impression is that the recording industry is extremely disappointed that file sharing is so persistent and that the legitimate marketplace has not outpaced piracy," said Eric Garland, CEO of BigChampagne, which charts traffic on file-sharing services. "I don't think Hollywood is yet in that position."
Although the Recording Industry Association of America has sued thousands of alleged music sharers -- including many on college campuses -- since September 2003, there's been no noticeable decline in P2P sharing.

Kos Examines Ohio Fraud Questions

So the question becomes, are the curious numbers in Ohio (and Florida) due to the way the electorate voted, or due to the way those votes were summed up in the central office? It is entirely possible that errors might exist which do not affect the outcome of the election, but which are still serious enough to require a serious review.

This is why I, for one believe it is our national interests to have a manual recount of some of the Ohio counties with the most unusual results. But this is not a Kerry issue; this is a democracy issue. Can these machines be trusted? Recounts in selected counties would resolve this: it needs to be done.

High Tea at Tenny Street

acoustic jam & open micSundays 2 - 7 pm
great room with excellent sound delicious food - relaxed atmosphere all performers welcome
or just come down and enjoy the show

ACLU Calls for Redoubled Effort to Counter “Unrelenting Assault” on Civil Liberties

In a full-page advertisement in today’s New York Times, the American Civil Liberties Union called on civil libertarians to redouble their efforts to oppose the Bush Administration’s "unrelenting assault on our civil liberties."
Even before today’s advertisement ran, the group said that within 24 hours of the election it had experienced its largest ever surge in online donations - more than 1,200 unsolicited gifts totaling more than $65,000 (an average of $54 per person).
"Over the past four years, the ACLU and its members have shown that we can successfully defend freedom even in the most inhospitable climate," said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. "Working with both Democrats and Republicans, we intend to build on that success, and we intend to win. The spontaneous outpouring of support we have seen is clearly a sign that the American people are ready, willing and able to fight to preserve our civil liberties."

The Post-Election Selection, on K Street

"After convincing Election Day wins ... Republican leaders can continue to try to repopulate Washington's famous lobbying corridor," K Street, "with their brethren," reports The Hill. Top lobbying slots are open at the American Chemistry Council, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, the National Cable & Telecommunications Association, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Visa and Freddie Mac. K Street Project co-founder Grover Norquist called hiring Democratic lobbyists "stupid," pointing to "the movie industry's loss of a key tax break" after the Motion Picture Association of America hired Democrat Dan Glickman as its chief lobbyist. [from PRWatch.org]

Holes in the Missile Shield

despite the more than $80 billion spent by the U.S. on missile defense since 1985, this system will not provide significant protection for many years, if ever. The political pressure to claim that the U.S. is secure against a rogue nation's attack has led to a defense that will not counter even the earliest threats from the emerging missile powers. The MDA's midcourse system is built to intercept long-range missiles fired thousands of kilometers from the U.S.; it can do nothing to stop a short- or medium-range missile launched from a ship off America's coasts. What is more, the interceptor rockets would most likely prove inadequate against long-range missiles as well, because an enemy could easily equip its ICBMs with fundamentally simple and highly effective countermeasures. [from Scientific American]

"Daily Show" Election Coverage

Web of Influence

Blogs are becoming more influential because they affect the content of international media coverage. Journalism professor Todd Gitlin once noted that media frame reality through “principles of selection, emphasis, and presentation composed of little tacit theories about what exists, what happens, and what matters.” Increasingly, journalists and pundits take their cues about “what matters” in the world from weblogs. For salient topics in global affairs, the blogosphere functions as a rare combination of distributed expertise, real-time collective response to breaking news, and public-opinion barometer. What’s more, a hierarchical structure has taken shape within the primordial chaos of cyberspace. A few elite blogs have emerged as aggregators of information and analysis, enabling media commentators to extract meaningful analysis and rely on blogs to help them interpret and predict political developments.

The Election County by County

Using County-by-County election return data from USA Today together with County boundary data from the US Census' Tiger database we produced the following graphic depicting the results. Of course, blue is for the democrats, red is for the republicans, and green is for all other. Each county's color is a mix of these three color components in proportion to the results for that county.
Counties shown in black represent either missing election data or a mismatch between the US Census data and the USA Today data. For example, the New England states' election return data is given for each municipality and/or district rather than for each county. Hence, it couldn't be easily matched with the county boundaries.

2002: A Palindrome Story

2002 demands lore—aside Roman-era eye, non-idyl. Guerilla muse, we call, rig. Yo! Brag us an ode- tale.
...
...
elated on a sugar: "Boy ... girl lace!" We sum all: ire, ugly din. One year enamored is aero-LSD named 2002

Florida Voter Approve Minimum Wage Increase

Thousands of Floridians who earn minimum wage will get bigger paychecks because voters overwhelmingly approved a $1 raise in the wage, from $5.15 to $6.15, on Tuesday."This is really a huge victory for Florida's working families," said Meghan Scott, communications director for Floridians For All, the group that sponsored the measure. "Once people heard what Amendment 5 was and what it would do for Florida's working poor, people really got it."

Reason Embattled Secularism in Peril

Scalia then laid out a philosophy in which democracy can never serve as a sufficient basis for governmental authority. “It is easy,” he asserted, “to see the hand of the Almighty behind rulers whose forebears, in the dim mists of history, were supposedly anointed by God, who at least obtained their thrones in awful and unpredictable battles whose outcome was determined by the Lord of Hosts, that is, the Lord of Armies. It is much more difficult to see the hand of God—or any higher moral authority—behind the fools and rogues (as the losers would have it) whom we ourselves elect to do our own will. How can their power to avenge—to vindicate the ‘public order’—be greater than our own?”
...The virtue of Scalia’s extremism is that it lays bare the messianic radicalism at the heart of the current assault on separation of church and state. This is not merely a constitutional or legal argument, though it is that too, but a far more fundamental attack on secularist and nonreligious humanist values. For the warriors of the religious Right, governmental power is not an end in itself but merely one more mechanism, along with institutions of education, communications, and finance, for advancing their values within society.

Presidential Votes Miscast on E-voting Machines Across the Country

Voters from at least half a dozen states reported that touch-screen voting machines had incorrectly recorded their choices, including for president.
Voters discovered the problems when checking the review screen at the end of the voting process. They found, to their surprise, that the machines indicated that they voted for one candidate when they had voted for another. When voters tried to correct the problem, the machine often made the same error several times. While in most cases the situation was reportedly resolved, many voters remain uneasy about whether the proper vote was ultimately cast. Meanwhile, voting experts are concerned that other voters are experiencing the problem, but failing to notice that the machine is indicating the wrong choice on the "summary" screen.
Election observers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Verified Voting Foundation (VVF) reported today that the problem, which some voting officials initially attributed to fluke "voter error," is evidently widespread and may even be relatively common with touch-screen machines. Incorrectly recorded votes make up roughly 20 percent of the e-voting problems reported through the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS), an online database in which volunteers with the Election Protection Coalition, a coalition of non-partisan election observers dedicated to preventing voter disenfranchisement, are recording and tracking voting problems.

Presidential Votes Miscast on E-voting Machines Across the Country

Voters from at least half a dozen states reported that touch-screen voting machines had incorrectly recorded their choices, including for president.
Voters discovered the problems when checking the review screen at the end of the voting process. They found, to their surprise, that the machines indicated that they voted for one candidate when they had voted for another. When voters tried to correct the problem, the machine often made the same error several times. While in most cases the situation was reportedly resolved, many voters remain uneasy about whether the proper vote was ultimately cast. Meanwhile, voting experts are concerned that other voters are experiencing the problem, but failing to notice that the machine is indicating the wrong choice on the "summary" screen.
Election observers with the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and Verified Voting Foundation (VVF) reported today that the problem, which some voting officials initially attributed to fluke "voter error," is evidently widespread and may even be relatively common with touch-screen machines. Incorrectly recorded votes make up roughly 20 percent of the e-voting problems reported through the Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS), an online database in which volunteers with the Election Protection Coalition, a coalition of non-partisan election observers dedicated to preventing voter disenfranchisement, are recording and tracking voting problems.

Selective Service Checking Names Between SS and Department of Education

Authority for conducting the matching: Computerized access tothe Selective Service Registrant Registration Records (SSS 10) enablesED to confirm the registration status of applicants for assistanceunder Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), as amended(20 U.S.C. 1070 et seq.). Section 12(f) of the Military SelectiveService Act, as amended [50 U.S.C. App. 462(f)], denies eligibility forany form of assistance or benefit under Title IV of the HEA to anyperson required to present himself for and submit to registration underSection 3 of the Military Selective Service System Act [50 U.S.C. App.453] who fails to do so in accordance with that section and any rulesand regulations issued under that section. In addition, Section12(f)(2) of the Military Selective Service System Act specifies thatany person required to present himself for and submit to registrationunder Section 3 of the Military Selective Service System Act must filea statement with the institution of higher education where the personintends to attend or is attending that he is in compliance with theMilitary Selective Service System Act. Furthermore, Section 12(f)(3) ofthe Military Selective Service System Act authorizes the Secretary ofEducation, in agreement with the Director of the Selective Service, toprescribe methods for verifying the statements of compliance filed bystudents.

Full transcript of bin Ladin's speech

Following is the full English transcript of Usama bin Ladin's speech in a videotape sent to Aljazeera. In the interests of authenticity, the content of the transcript, which appeared as subtitles at the foot of the screen, has been left unedited.

War Corporatism and the Project for a New American Century

Stark, slick Quicktime presentation opposed to US foreign policy. Take it as you will.

Artist: Bathsheba Grossman

Welcome. I'm an artist exploring the region between art and mathematics, and this is my gallery and storefront. My work is about life in three dimensions: working with symmetry and balance, getting from a zero point to infinity, and always finding beauty in geometry.
Here you'll find my signature designs in metal, along with 3D laser-etched glass designs including Milky Way Galaxy and protein structures.

16 Writers (from across the map) Speculate on Bush's Second Term

The Triumph of Anything Goes David Greenberg
The Plutocrats Go Wild James K. Galbraith
The Democratic Party Is Toast Grover Norquist
The Scandals Finally Break Kevin Drum
The Empire Strikes Out Gideon Rose
Hoover's Court Rides Again Cass R. Sunstein
Vengeance Is His Paul Begala
Bush Becomes a Moderate, Really Mickey Edwards & Nancy Sinnott Dwight
The Left Learns From Goldwater Todd Gitlin
The Deficit Conquers All Sebastian Mallaby
W. Takes On Global Warming Gregg Easterbrook
The Roquefort Cheese Wars Christopher Buckley
Decline of American Greatness Elaine Kamarck
America Gets Privatized E.J. Dionne
The Glorious Revolution: A Look Back Jeff Greenfield

States with electronic voting machines gave Bush mysterious 5% advantage

Exit polls were recently used in Venezuela to ensure the vote was accurate and legitimate.
Perhaps more importantly, while exit polling is unreliable, the odds of President Bush having gaining an advantage from every exit poll in swing states is an extremely improbable coincidence.
Actual voting counts found that Bush trailed by 5 percent, with a 5 percent discrepancy favoring Bush.

From Canada: Marry an American

You can help. Open your heart, and your home. Marry an American. Legions of Canadians have already pledged to sacrifice their singlehood to save our southern neighbours from four more years of cowboy conservatism.

Serious Discrepencies Between Ohio Exit Polls and Results

Kerry won. Here's the facts.
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.

Hungary Joins Others in Pulling Troops From Iraq

Speaking at a ceremony for the end of military conscription, the newly appointed prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsany, said Hungary was obliged to stay until the Iraqi elections scheduled for January, but would withdraw the troops by March.
"To stay longer is an impossibility," said Mr. Gyurcsany (pronounced JOR-chahn-ee).
The United States had persuaded 32 countries to provide 22,000 soldiers as part of the multinational force established to stabilize postwar Iraq. But over the last few months, a number of countries have withdrawn, some citing the cost but others concerned about security, and many governments face increasing public opposition to the war.

Politics, Terror and Religion

‘Twas the year of our lord 1605, the King - James the 1st (God save the King!) will be opening parliament tomorrow. But lo! What is this? Conspiracy? Grab that fellow! Following on from last year’s post about Guy Fawkes here is some more edutainment about religion, terrorism and Weapons of Mass Destruction from nearly 400 years ago. Things just never change do they? (More BritFilter for your delectation – and before you ask "Why not November the 5th?" Fawkes was arrested on the night of the 4th and with recent global events I thought some might be interested in the parallels). [from MetaFilter.com]

Democracy 2004

Earlier this year, photographer Richard Avedon decided that he would try to capture a sense of the country in the midst of a crucial Presidential election campaign. These are the (unfinished, but wonderful) results.

Post-Election Protests in Portland

A reader’s guide to expatriating on November 3

The most serious barrier to renouncing your citizenship is that the State Department, which oversees expatriation, is reluctant to allow citizens to go “stateless.” Before allowing expatriation, the department will want you to have obtained citizenship or legal asylum in another country—usually a complicated and expensive process, if it can be done at all. Would-be renunciants must also prove that they do not intend to live in the United States afterward. Furthermore, you cannot renounce inside U.S. borders; the declaration must be made at a consul’s office abroad.

Elsewhere in Vote Land

Senators-elect:
Jim DeMint:
Thinks that unwed pregnant women and gays are unfit to be schoolteachers.
Tom Coburn:
Wants the death penalty for abortion doctors.
John Thune:
Mr. School Prayer Amendment.
Voters in 11 states voted to ban same-sex marriage.
The lowest margin was 57%-43%. The highest (Mississippi) was 86%-14%. Kentucky's also bans civil unions. That one was 75%-25%.The Senate will likely be split 55-45 in favor of Republicans, creeping closer to a filibuster-proof supermajority.
Meanwhile, 89% of these guys are older than 65.
Enjoy your tax cut, America. You're going to need it.
[from MetaFilter.com]

"Nonlethal Weapons: Terms and References"

This 1997 report from the Institute for National Security Studies - part of the US Air Force Academy - lists dozens of "nonlethal weapons," many of which are very obscure. Categories include acoustics, biotechnicals, electromagnetics, entanglers, holograms, and reactants.
It was retrieved from the extensive Defense Technical Information Center website here.
The glossary of nonlethal weapons is reproduced below for easy reading, but the full report also contains a section on "concepts" (including ethical, operational, physiological, and theoretical) and an invaluable bibliography with 644 entries. [from TheMemoryHole.org]

Kyoto Is Too Little to Fix Warming, Says U.N. Climate Chief

"My feeling is that we will probably need to do more than most people are talking about" to combat climate change, said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He welcomed ratification of the Kyoto pact by Russia's lower house of parliament, paving the way for the long-delayed 1997 accord to enter into force in the 126 nations that approved it, even though the world's greatest polluter, the United States, pulled out in 2001. "This mustn't lull us into thinking that the problem is solved," Pachauri said. "Kyoto is not enough. We now have to look at the problem afresh." Kyoto is a first step towards curbing emissions of gases like carbon dioxide, mainly from burning fossil fuels, that scientists blame for trapping heat in the atmosphere like the panes of glass in a greenhouse.

BBC exec blasts U.S. war coverage

BBC World Service and Global News director Richard Sambrook on Tuesday took the U.S. news nets to task on their own turf for "wrapping themselves in the flag" and not asking the tough questions about the Bush administration's reasons for going to war in Iraq (news - web sites).
Sambrook, speaking at Columbia U.'s Graduate School of Journalism, warned that such perceived partisanship of the news media may be playing a part in exposing journalists covering Iraq and other trouble spots around the globe to danger.
"Journalists are now at a greater risk than they have ever been before. Where once their neutrality was widely recognized and respected, today they are targeted and sought out, seen as high-profile representatives of their countries or cultures," Sambrook said.

Police Shoot Cayenne Paintballs at Protesters

Police in riot gear fired paintballs filled with cayenne pepper Thursday night to disperse a crowd of protesters assembled in this historic gold mining town where President Bush was spending the night after a campaign appearance.
...Richard Swaney, 65, of Central Point, said had joined in a peaceful protest outside the Jackson County fairgrounds where Bush spoke, and then went to Jacksonville to join the protest there.
He said he was walking with the crowd away from the inn when he was hit in the back with three separate bursts, one of which knocked him down. He felt a stinging sensation he thought was rubber bullets and smelled pepper.

Cronkite on bin Laden tape

Cronkite: ...In fact, I'm a little inclined to think that Karl Rove, the political manager at the White House, who is a very clever man, he probably set up bin Laden to this thing. The advantage to the Republican side is to get rid of, as a principal subject of the campaigns right now, get rid of the whole problem of the al Qaqaa explosive dump. Right now, that, the last couple of days, has, I think, upset the Republican campaign.

Iran lawmakers approve uranium enrichment

"Death to America!" chanted Iranian lawmakers after a unanimous vote Sunday to allow their government to resume uranium enrichment activities.
The legislation doers not specifically force the government to resume uranium enrichment or end snap U.N. inspections of atomic facilities as some of the Iranian lawmakers had wanted, reported al-Jazeera television.
"The message of this bill is that we will not give in to pressure," said Parliament Speaker Gholam Ali Haddad Adel. "The Iranian nation is determined to use peaceful nuclear technology."

New missile defense director vows more secrecy

Obering said officials have an obligation to inform U.S. taxpayers about their investment in the multibillion-dollar system, but said the agency seeks to avoid tipping off potential enemies about weaknesses in the Ground-based Midcourse Defense system.
"Aspects that anyone can glean a vulnerability or a definite determination of capability of the system [are] something that we want to protect," he said.

Compare this summary of Missile Defense by the Union of Concerned Scientists from March 04.
"The system the Bush administration plans to deploy by 2004 will have essentially no defense capability. The technology needed for an effective missile defense system still doesn't exist. All the systems being developed are in early stages of research and development, and will have undergone only rudimentary testing by the time they will be fielded in 2004-2006. Operational testing will not have begun and test conditions will remain far from realistic. None of the X-band radars that are central to the system will be built by 2004."

Frontline: "The Persuaders" airs Nov. 9

FRONTLINE takes an in-depth look at the multibillion-dollar "persuasion industries" of advertising and public relations and how marketers have developed new ways of integrating their messages deeper into the fabric of our lives. Through sophisticated market research methods to better understand consumers and by turning to the little-understood techniques of public relations to make sure their messages come from sources we trust, marketers are crafting messages that resonate with an increasingly cynical public. In this documentary essay, correspondent Douglas Rushkoff (correspondent for FRONTLINE's "The Merchants of Cool") also explores how the culture of marketing has come to shape the way Americans understand the world and themselves and how the techniques of the persuasion industries have migrated to politics, shaping the way our leaders formulate policy, influence public opinion, make decisions, and stay in power.
[Douglas Rushkoff, author of "Media Virus," "Playing with the Future" and "Coercion" is doing the Persuaders and he is always worth a listen. -ed.]

Swing Set

This American Life looks at undecided voters.
Act 2 is an excellent and comprehensive look at voter suppression attempts across the country.

9/11 "black box" cover-up at Ground Zero?

This is the more comprehensive version of our story appearing in today's Philadelphia Daily News. [mirrored here ]
Two men who worked extensively in the wreckage of the World Trade Center claim they helped federal agents find three of the four “black boxes” from the jetliners that struck the towers on 9/11 - contradicting the official account.
Both the independent 9/11 Commission and federal authorities continue to insist that none of the four devices - a cockpit voice recorder (CVR) and flight data recorder (FDR) from the two planes - were ever found in the wreckage.
But New York City firefighter Nicholas DeMasi has written in a recent book -- self-published by several Ground Zero workers -- that he escorted federal agents on an all-terrain vehicle in October 2001 and helped them locate three of the four.
His account is supported by a volunteer, Mike Bellone, whose efforts at Ground Zero have been chronicled in the New York Times and elsewhere. Bellone said assisted DeMasi and the agents and that saw a device that resembling a “black box” in the back of the firefighter’s ATV.
Their story raises the question of whether there was a some type of cover-up at Ground Zero. Federal aviation officials - blaming the massive devastation - have said the World Trade Center attacks seem to be the only major jetliner crashes in which the critical devices were never located.

Readers of Politics on Internet More Aware of Competing Views

Overall, they report, Internet users have greater exposure to a variety of political views, and particularly those that challenge their own. This was true even among those with similar age and educational levels. Broadband Internet users have a wider exposure than dial-up customers.
“We were actually a bit surprised,” said Lee Rainie, director of the Pew Internet & American Life Project. “Especially with broadband users, who tend to be more sophisticated -- people can increasingly become selective about what they get online. Before we started, we were prepared to say that there’s the start of a bad trend going on here, but we were surprised to find out the opposite, that what’s going on is good for democracy.”

Lawyer to Post List of Accused Priests

A lawyer has compiled a list of 2,600 Roman Catholic priests nationwide who have been accused of sexual misconduct against children and plans to post it online by early next year.
...Demarest said the database of alleged "priest perpetrators" and other Catholic officials who have been accused of sexually abusing children was assembled from public sources, such as court filings and media reports. The entries will list names of those accused and the time, place and nature of the alleged misconduct as well as whether a lawsuit or criminal charges resulted.
It is believed to be the only database of national scope that identifies individual priests. Demarest said she started working on it in 1993 while representing clients molested by a Dallas priest.

Hacker find Security Hole in Gmail

Google's high profile webmail service, Gmail, is vulnerable to a security exploit that might allow hackers full access to a user's email account simply by knowing the user name, according to reports.
The security flaw allows full access to users' accounts, with no need of a password, Israeli news site Nana says . Using a hex-encoded XSS link, the victim's cookie file can be stolen by a hacker, who can later use it to identify himself to Gmail as the original owner of an email account, regardless of whether or not the password is subsequently changed. Following up a tip from an Israeli hacker, journos from the site confirmed the attack and verified the exploit with local security firm Aladdin Knowledge Systems.

Bush Seeks Limit to Suits Over Voting Rights

Bush administration lawyers argued in three closely contested states last week that only the Justice Department, and not voters themselves, may sue to enforce the voting rights set out in the Help America Vote Act, which was passed in the aftermath of the disputed 2000 election.
Veteran voting-rights lawyers expressed surprise at the government's action, saying that closing the courthouse door to aspiring voters would reverse decades of precedent.
Since the civil rights era of the 1960s, individuals have gone to federal court to enforce their right to vote, often with the support of groups such as the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the League of Women Voters or the state parties. And until now, the Justice Department and the Supreme Court had taken the view that individual voters could sue to enforce federal election law.
But in legal briefs filed in connection with cases in Ohio, Michigan and Florida, the administration's lawyers argue that the new law gives Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft the exclusive power to bring lawsuits to enforce its provisions. These include a requirement that states provide "uniform and nondiscriminatory" voting systems, and give provisional ballots to those who say they have registered but whose names do not appear on the rolls.

EPA Plan to Study Pesticides' Effect on Kids Spurs Backlash within Agency

The EPA announced this month that it was beginning a two-year investigation, partially funded by the American Chemical Council, of how 60 children in Duval County, Fla., absorb pesticides and other household chemicals. The chemical industry funding initially prompted some environmentalists to question whether the study would be biased, and some rank- and-file agency scientists are now questioning whether the plan will exploit financially strapped families.
In exchange for participating for two years in the Children's Environmental Exposure Research Study, which involves infants and children up to age 3, the EPA will give each family using pesticides in their home $970, some children's clothing and a camcorder that parents can keep.

Shazam - it's Azzam!

Newsday has well-balanced editorial coverage of the latest bush-league attempt by the GOP to scare up some votes: it's "Azzam the American"!
A "terrorist video" features previously unknown Azzam declaring war on America with stereotypical scariness. In a tactic previously unused by terrorists, Azzam calls himself an American and denounces Bush cabinet members by name. Apparently, Azzam is trying to get those of us who are against the administration to identify with his unique method of protest.
According to Newsday:
There was no actual evidence yesterday that the late October tape was produced in Karl Rove's basement or Ed Gillespie's garage...
However the tape materialized - wink, wink - it dovetails almost perfectly with the president's fear-based campaign.
And what a piece of work this video is!
The speaker is identified as "Azzam the American," which you have to admit is an odd name to choose for someone seeking to connect with "my fellow countrymen."...
He speaks in what sounds like the villain's dialogue in a bad Schwarzenegger film.

[I saw the video and the accent is just wrong. I grew up in Dearborn and the voice sounds like someone who doesn't know any Arabs trying to sound Arabic. -ed.]

Blair 'uses intelligence as PR tool'

The former chief investigator of Britain's Intelligence and Security Committee said that "intelligence has been used as a 'PR tool' since Tony Blair came to power." During 1998's Operation Desert Fox in Iraq, "I was under pressure and my analysts were under pressure," said John Morrison. "It got to the point that individual analysts were being rung up by the press office and being asked to say 'this is great, isn't it?'" During 1999's Kosovo bombing, Morrison set up his own press office to have greater control, but "we were under constant pressure to field talking heads ... [and] to have themes for individual days." [from PRWatch.org]

Homeland Security disavows PR document touting successes

A Bush political appointee in the Department of Homeland Security's Customs and Border Protection bureau drafted and distributed a public relations strategy designed to "change perception" about the nation's security by repeating the message, in the weeks leading up to the presidential election, that America is safer, according to internal government documents.
The "90-day Strategy" lays out a detailed media plan to "push information out," "maximize" the media, and "brand" the border protection agency as a model of counterterrorism operations.
"Reassure the citizens of the United States," says the strategy, which was presented five weeks ago to public affairs officials for Customs and Border Protection regional offices around the country. "Repeat the message. . . . Repeat until we are completely exhausted by it."

LSD Reports From the US Military

The Memory Hole has received three Army reports on experiments involving LSD. (The documents date from the 1960s and 1970s.) One is posted below, and the others will follow.
In our FOIA request, we also asked for several other similar reports, which are currently being reviewed for release. We'll post them as they become available. [from TheMemoryHole.org]

Jon Stewart on C-SPAN

Jon Stewart on the Presidential Election, the Media, and PoliticsIn New York City, NY, Host and Executive Producer of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show," Jon Stewart, talks about presidential politics and the media.

NASA photo analyst: Bush wore a device during debate

George W. Bush tried to laugh off the bulge. "I don't know what that is," he said on "Good Morning America" on Wednesday, referring to the infamous protrusion beneath his jacket during the presidential debates. "I'm embarrassed to say it's a poorly tailored shirt."
Dr. Robert M. Nelson, however, was not laughing. He knew the president was not telling the truth. And Nelson is neither conspiracy theorist nor midnight blogger. He's a senior research scientist for NASA and for Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and an international authority on image analysis. Currently he's engrossed in analyzing digital photos of Saturn's moon Titan, determining its shape, whether it contains craters or canyons.

Internet Vets for Truth

"Our goal is to present you with these clips to help you make an informed choice next Tuesday." Your one-stop-shop for documentary clips related to Kerry and Bush, presented by the Internets Vets for Truth.

Online Journalists Arrested in Iran

The recent arrest of several bloggers, online journalists, and Internet technicians in Iran has raised fears that the country's old guard is determined to muzzle dissent in cyberspace.
The Internet has become a refuge for liberal journalists since the hard-line judiciary closed scores of reformist publications over the past four years. The Web log, or blog, format - a cross between a diary and public commentary - has allowed dissident writers to reach a mass audience with less of the expense and oversight of print media.

Defense Document and Flim Flam

WEIRD SCIENCE: TELEPORTATION PHYSICS
The Air Force Research Laboratory has paid for and published a newstudy on "teleportation physics," referring to the disembodiedtransport of objects across space.
The author strives to distinguish his subject from the fictionalStar Trek "transporter" concept, and notes that "we are still veryfar away from being able to ... teleport human beings (and evensimpler biological entities such as cells, etc.) and bulkinanimate objects...."But after fifty pages of opaque physics, he concludes with anendorsement of remote viewing, psychokinesis and spoon bending bypsychic Uri Geller.
"During a talk that he gave at the U.S. Capitol building, Uri caused a spoon to curve upward with no force applied, and then thespoon continued to bend after he put it back down and continuedwith his talk," he reports."
There are numerous supporters within the U.S. militaryestablishment who comprehend the significance of remote viewingand PK [psychokinesis] phenomenon [sic], and believe that they could have strategic implications," he notes.
And he repeats a warning that "foreign adversaries could exploit micro- or macro-PK to induce U.S. military fighter pilots to losecontrol of their aircraft and crash."
Given the looming ESP gap, the author recommends that "A research program improving on and expanding, or implementing novel variations of, the Chinese and Uri Geller-type experiments should be conducted in order to generate p-Teleportation phenomenon [sic] in the lab."
The report concludes with a ten-page bibliography on teleportation physics and a distribution list that amounts to something like a "who's who" in "alternative science." See "Teleportation Physics Study" by Eric W. Davis, Air ForceResearch Lab Special Report, Edwards Air Force Base, August 2004,distribution unlimited (1.7 MB PDF file) [from Secrecy News] http://www.fas.org/sgp/eprint/teleport.pdf

For more on Uri Geller, read the terrific book Flim-Flam! by magician James Randi.

How John Kerry Exposed the Contra-Cocaine Scandal

In early 1986, the 42-year-old Massachusetts Democrat stood almost alone in the U.S. Senate demanding answers about the emerging evidence that CIA-backed Contras were filling their coffers by collaborating with drug traffickers then flooding U.S. borders with cocaine from South America.
Kerry assigned members of his personal Senate staff to pursue the allegations. He also persuaded the Republican majority on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to request information from the Reagan-Bush administration about the alleged Contra drug traffickers.
In taking on the inquiry, Kerry challenged President Ronald Reagan at the height of his power, at a time he was calling the Contras the "moral equals of the Founding Fathers." Kerry's questions represented a particular embarrassment to Vice President George H.W. Bush, whose responsibilities included overseeing U.S. drug-interdiction policies.

Bush Hides Global Warming Evidence

"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," James E. Hansen told a University of Iowa audience.
Hansen is director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York and has twice briefed a task force headed by Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) on global warming.
Hansen said the administration wants to hear only scientific results that "fit predetermined, inflexible positions." Evidence that would raise concerns about the dangers of climate change is often dismissed as not being of sufficient interest to the public.

Christian-right views are swaying politicians and threatening the environment

[A] scripture-based justification for anti-environmentalism -- when was the last time you heard a conservative politician talk about that?
Odds are it was in 1981, when President Reagan's first secretary of the interior, James Watt, told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. "God gave us these things to use. After the last tree is felled, Christ will come back," Watt said in public testimony that helped get him fired.
Today's Christian fundamentalist politicians are more politically savvy than Reagan's interior secretary was; you're unlikely to catch them overtly attributing public-policy decisions to private religious views. But their words and actions suggest that many share Watt's beliefs. Like him, many Christian fundamentalists feel that concern for the future of our planet is irrelevant, because it has no future. They believe we are living in the End Time, when the son of God will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. They may also believe, along with millions of other Christian fundamentalists, that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed -- even hastened -- as a sign of the coming Apocalypse.

New Human Species Discovered

Even more intriguing is the fact that Flores' inhabitants have incredibly detailed legends about the existence of little people on the island they call Ebu Gogo.
The islanders describe Ebu Gogo as being about one metre tall, hairy and prone to "murmuring" to each other in some form of language. They were also able to repeat what islanders said to them in a parrot-like fashion.

*Bush Wanted To Invade Iraq If Elected in 2000

“It was on his mind. He said to me: ‘One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.’ And he said, ‘My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.’ He said, ‘If I have a chance to invade….if I had that much capital, I’m not going to waste it. I’m going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I’m going to have a successful presidency.”

Bush Voted Year's Top Film Villian

Bush won the dubious accolade, announced Wednesday, for his appearance in Michael Moore's anti-Bush documentary "Fahrenheit 9/11."
He beat a shortlist that included the nefarious Doctor Octopus, played by Alfred Molina, in "Spider-Man 2"; "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'"s cannibalistic Leatherface; Andy Serkis' creepy Gollum from "Lord of the Rings" trilogy; and Elle Driver, the eyepatch-wearing assassin played by Daryl Hannah in "Kill Bill."
Almost 10,000 people voted in the poll, conducted by Total Film Magazine.

Dada, Ephemera and Glasgow

I was wandering around the internets looking for early twentieth century ephemera and look what I found. Digital Dada Library “This page provides links to some of the major Dada-era publications in the International Dada Archive. These books, pamphlets, and periodicals are housed in the Special Collections Department of the University of Iowa Libraries. …Each document has been scanned in its entirety.” EphemeraNow “is a family-friendly Web site dedicated to the commercial art of mid-century America.” The Ephemera Society “is a non-profit body concerned with the collection, preservation, study and educational uses of printed and handwritten ephemera.” and more! For those of you who have complained that this place is getting too “US politics-filter” I give you Glasgow Digital Library Collections which has all sorts of stuff including a great history of the labour movement in Glasgow 1910-1932 [from MetaFilter.com]

*Global Warming Seen as Security Threat

A growing number of analysts argue that global warming linked to greenhouse gas emissions is not just a "green issue." They argue it might eventually top terrorism on the global security agenda, provoking new conflicts and inflaming old ones.
"The biggest security problem from global warming would be forced migrations, the dislocation of people because of flooding or drought," said Steve Sawyer, climate policy adviser for environmental group Greenpeace. "Or drastic ecosystem change could change the resource base and uproot rural people. Forced migrations of people almost always cause problems."
Former Canadian Environment Minister David Anderson said earlier this year that global warming posed a greater long-term threat to humanity than terrorism because it could force hundreds of millions from their homes.

Thinking Machine 4

The artwork is an artificial intelligence program, ready to play chess with the viewer. If the viewer confronts the program, the computer's thought process is sketched on screen as it plays. A map is created from the traces of literally thousands of possible futures as the program tries to decide its best move. Those traces become a key to the invisible lines of force in the game as well as a window into the spirit of a thinking machine.
Play the game.
[this is so flippin' cool, I can hardly believ it. -- ed.]

The Road To Abu Ghraib

A generation from now, historians may look back to April 28, 2004, as the day the United States lost the war in Iraq... It was a direct—and predictable—consequence of a policy, hatched at the highest levels of the administration, by senior White House officials and lawyers, in the weeks and months after 9/11. Yet the administration has largely managed to escape responsibility for those decisions; a month from election day, almost no one in the press or the political class is talking about what is, without question, the worst scandal to emerge from President Bush's nearly four years in office... Given the particular conditions faced by the president and his deputies after 9/11—a war against terrorists, in which the need to extract intelligence via interrogations was intensely pressing, but the limits placed by international law on interrogation techniques were very constricting—did those leaders have better alternatives than the one they chose? The answer is that they did. And we will be living with the consequences of the choices they made for years to come. [from MetaFilter.com]

Amnesty International: US 'War on Terror' Mentality Leads to Torture

The United States is more concerned with getting around international laws which prohibit torture than with safeguarding human rights as it wages its "war on terror", Amnesty International said in a report.
The report, a 200-page analysis of the practices and decisions that led to torture in Iraq, and alleged abuse in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, argues that Washington's "war mentality" led it down a slippery slope toward disregard for the rule of law.
"It is tragic that in the 'war on terror', the USA has itself undermined the rule of law. Its selective disregard for the Geneva Conventions and international human rights law has contributed to torture and ill-treatment," it wrote.

*US Gave Date of War to Britain in Advance, Court Papers Reveal

Secret plans for the war in Iraq were passed to British Army chiefs by US defense planners five months before the invasion was launched, a court martial heard yesterday.
The revelation strengthened suspicions that Tony Blair gave his agreement to President George Bush to go to war while the diplomatic efforts to force Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolutions were continuing.

Bloggers, Watch What You Say...

At 9:45 last night, the Secret Service showed up on my mother's front door to talk to me about what I said about the President, as what I said could apparently be misconstrued as a threat to his life. After about ten minutes of talking to me and my family, they quickly came to the conclusion that I was not a threat to national security (mostly because we are the least threatening people in the entire world) and told me that they would not recommend that any further action be taken with my case. However, I do now have a file with the FBI that includes my photograph, my e-mail address, and the location of my LJ. This will follow me around for the rest of my life, regardless of the fact that the Secret Service knows that I am not a threat.

New Florida vote scandal feared

Two e-mails, prepared for the executive director of the Bush campaign in Florida and the campaign's national research director in Washington DC, contain a 15-page so-called "caging list".
It lists 1,886 names and addresses of voters in predominantly black and traditionally Democrat areas of Jacksonville, Florida.

Here are the "caging lists" Caging-1.xls Caging.xls

Public disclosure laws imperiled in U.S., world

Much of the increasingly reactionary laws against public disclosure of documents and proceedings came after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said Lucy Dalglish, executive director of the Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press. In the wake of the tragedy, the government "embarked on an unprecedented path of secrecy," which caused them to "abandon the culture of openness and opt for secrecy," she said.
This, in turn, made it harder for reporters to get the information they need to inform the public about important matters. And the public, she added, "doesn't seem to care that they don't know what's going on. They just want to be safe."
Dalglish admitted there are things that should be classified. But journalists should also be able to access information that could never aid terrorists.
"Somewhere along the line, the government was able to convince the public that secrecy makes you safer," she said.

No More Check-Floating

Starting Thursday, a federal law called Check Clearing for the 21st Century Act or Check 21, will allow banks to process checks without any lag time.
Check 21 was originally proposed after Sept. 11, 2001, when physical copies of checks could not be delivered to banks because air traffic was grounded.
Similar to an airline using an e-ticket as opposed to the standard paper ticket for your receipt, your checking account will now function the same way. Instead of relying on the paper receipt of a check, a bank will now be allowed to convert the check into a digital image and process it electronically though its system.
Once the new systems are in place, checks that used to take a day or more to clear could go through in less than 24 hours. Here are the basics on Check 21 and how you can avoid getting burned by the bounce:

Hoax: The Flu Vaccine Shortage is Not Attributable to a John Edwards Lawsuit

American manufacturers did not produce flu vaccine until liability lawsuits made it impossible for them to continue doing so. Most American pharmaceutical companies got out of the flu vaccine market because a variety of factors (not related to lawsuits) make it an unattractive line of business:
Flu viruses mutate easily, so new flu vaccine formulas have to be made up every year.
Because a different flu vaccine is used each season, unsold doses cannot be saved and end up being destroyed (along with any potential profits).
The production of flu vaccine (and the requirement of meeting Food and Drug Administration standards) is a labor-intensive process. Flu vaccine is made by injecting virus into fertilized chicken eggs — each egg must be hand-inspected and hand-injected and produces only 4 or 5 doses of vaccine.
Because flu vaccine is a commodity (i.e., the same product can be made by many different companies) and much of the available supply is bought up in large orders by the government, the market price of vaccine — and the profit to be made from selling it — has been quite low. (The global market for vaccine is about $6 billion a year, while the global market for drugs is about $340 billion a year. Which of these two markets a pharmaceutical company should concentrate on is a no-brainer.)
Sometime within the next several years, the flu vaccine industry will switch to growing vaccine in cell cultures rather than eggs, a much easier and cheaper process. No new entrant to the flu vaccine market is going to spend several years and millions of dollars investing in a process that will soon become obsolete.

EFF Challenges Secret Court Order That Led to Indymedia Seizures

The motion seeks to discover which agencies and governments are responsible for the seizure in order to hold them accountable. In their motion, EFF attorneys argue that "the public and the press have a clear and compelling interest in discovering under what authority the government was able unilaterally to prevent Internet publishers from exercising their First Amendment rights." They argue further that secret court orders circumvent due process, undermine confidence in the judicial system, and deny an avenue for redress.
"When a secret order results in the unconstitutional silencing of media, the public has a right to know what happened," said Kurt Opsahl, EFF Staff Attorney. "Freedom of the press is an essential part of the First Amendment, and our government must show it had a compelling state interest to order such an extreme intrusion to the rights of the publisher and the public."
Citing a gag order, Rackspace has not revealed the contents of the seizure order, the requesting agency, or even confirmed the identity of the court that issued it. Apparently requested by an unidentified foreign government, the secret order was served to San Antonio-based Rackspace Managed Hosting, which hosts IndyMedia's servers. The seizure took offline more than 20 IMC websites and more than 10 streaming radio feeds. So far, government agencies in the US, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Departments of State and Justice, and the US Attorney's Office in San Antonio, have refused to take responsibility for the incident. Prosecutors in Switzerland and Italy have admitted pursuing investigations related to Indymedia articles but denied requesting the seizure.

Big Music vs Eliot Spitzer

In May, Spitzer ordered Universal Music Group (France), Sony-BMG Music Entertainment (Japan and Germany), the EMI Group (UK) and the Warner Music Group (USA) to return $50 million to musicians they'd had under contract.
Now payola is the issue and Spitzer is looking for contracts, billing records and other information detailing their ties to independent middlemen who pitch new songs to radio programmers, says the New York Times, going on:
"The inquiry encompasses all the major radio formats and is not aiming at any individual record promoter, these people [sources] said. Mr. Spitzer and representatives for the record companies declined to comment.

Microsoft wants your next car or SUV to run Windows.

It's no joke. The world's largest software company is revving up to position itself as the largest supplier of software to car manufacturers, with a custom version of Windows CE controlling everything from in-vehicle entertainment to satellite navigation.
"We're providing the end-to-end telematic system," says Peter Wengert, an electrical engineer who is now a marketing manager for Microsoft's Automotive Business Unit. Telematics is the auto industry's term for networked cars.
Microsoft is racing to take advantage of what appears to be an inexorable trend toward smarter cars. General Motors says software and electronics already are responsible for more than one-third of the cost of a typical automobile, and an IBM executive predicted this week that the figure will be closer to 90 percent in five years.

89-Year-Old Quaker Woman Jailed for Protesting War

Lillian Willoughby, a Deptford Quaker who will turn 90 in January, went to jail Wednesday to protest the war in Iraq.
Shortly before noon, Willoughby rose from her wheelchair, gave her husband of 64 years, George, a hug and a kiss, and disappeared into the federal detention center at Seventh and Arch streets here.
Reporting with her were five other peace activists, including a young couple from Camden, Cassie Haw, 22, and her husband, Chris, 23. All were convicted of obstructing the entrance to the federal building in Philadelphia on March 20, 2003, the day the United States invaded Iraq.

Contractors in Iraq make costs balloon

Jerry Zovko's contract with Blackwater USA looked straightforward: He would earn $600 a day guarding convoys that carried food for U.S. troops in Iraq.
But that cost -- $180,000 a year -- was just the first installment of what taxpayers were asked to pay for Zovko's work. Blackwater, based in Moyock, N.C., and three other companies would add to the bill, and to their profits.
Several Blackwater contracts obtained by The News & Observer open a small window into the multibillion-dollar world of private military contractors in Iraq. The contracts show how costs can add up when the government uses private military contractors to perform tasks once handled by the Army.

War Is Heavy Metal

Artist-turned-filmmaker George Gittoes traveled to Iraq to find out what soldiers there are listening to. He discovered that much of it is music of their own – recorded in computer studios they’ve assembled in their barracks. Cath Dwyer used Gittoes’ footage to produce a radio piece for ABC Radio National in Australia, from which this piece was adapted. Technical production by Mark Don and Michelle Goldsworthy.
Hear a longer version of this piece
More about George Gittoes' film
More about George Gittoes
More about Street Stories, where the radio version of this story first appeared

60 Minutes: Re-Opening the Murder Case of Emmett Till

Till was a 14-year-old black youngster who was murdered in Mississippi for whistling at a white woman. His death was a spark that ignited the civil rights movement in America. Two white men were put on trial for killing him, but in spite of strong evidence against them, an all-white jury acquitted them in about an hour. This past spring, the U.S. Justice Department opened a new investigation, based on evidence suggesting that more than a dozen people may have been involved in the murder of Till, and that at least five of them are still alive. Those five could face criminal prosecution. Correspondent Ed Bradley reports.

Triumph on Spin Alley

The best post debate coverage... ahem... for me to poop on.

WWF: Leave Some of the Dead Wood

WWF, the global environment group, says insects, plants, birds and mammals are all suffering because of an increasing tendency to remove decaying timber.
It says old and dead trees mean forests are often in much better shape and more able to resist pests and other perils.
WWF wants landowners to increase the amount of dead wood they leave in their forests to help to sustain wildlife.

*Where to Vote and What's on the Ballot in Michigan

www.michigan.gov/vote

*Resources for Voters in E-voting Hotspots

The Electronic Frontier Foundation is redistributing a press release from Verified Voting Foundation announcing the release of several key resources for voters in e-voting "hotspots."
Voters Guides include step-by-step instructions for voting on the most commonly used electronic voting machines. There are also maps detailing what voting equipment is being used at polling places nationwide.
The Election Incident Reporting System (EIRS) allows voters, media, and others to keep abreast of election incidents nationwide that are being reported to the nonpartisan Election Protection network hotline at 1-866-OUR VOTE.
EFF is working with Verified Voting to lead a team of technology attorneys who will be available to respond to problems with electronic voting machines nationwide as part of the National Election Protection Coalition.

Top Civilian Contracting Official Accuses Army of Bending Rules for Halliburton

In an Oct. 21 letter to the acting Army secretary, Greenhouse said that after her repeated questions about the Halliburton contracts, she was excluded from major decisions to award money and that her job status was threatened.
In response, Army officials referred her accusations to the Pentagon's investigations bureau for review and promised to protect her position in the meantime.
Greenhouse, 62, is a veteran of military procurement and serves the Corps of Engineers as the principal assistant responsible for contracting — the top civilian overseeing the agency's contracts. She also has chief responsibility for reviewing adherence to the Pentagon's elaborate rules, intended to shield awards from outside influence and to promote competition.
The contracts to Halliburton, a Houston-based conglomerate once headed by Dick Cheney before he became vice president, have stirred controversy and charges of favoritism because some contracts were granted on an emergency basis, without competitive bidding.
The company's operations in Iraq, involving work for more than $10 billion, have also been dogged by charges of overbilling and waste and have been an issue in the presidential campaign.

Maureen Dowd on "Whad'Ya Know"

RealAudio file

Errol Morris' Political Ads

Listen to Real People who voted for George Bush in 2000, but will be voting for Kerry in 2004.Why so many? Because people say some are better than others. The problem: no one agrees on which ones those are.

U.S. president pens controversial tax cut bill in low key affair

Without fanfare, U.S. President George W. Bush signed into law on Friday a nearly US$140 billion corporate tax cut bill derided by both Democratic presidential rival John Kerry and Republican Senator John McCain as a giveaway to special interests.
The new law aims to end a trade fight with the European Union by repealing U.S. export tax subsidies that violate global trade rules. But the EU has objected to some of the provisions and has yet to say whether it will remove its sanctions on US$4 billion worth of U.S. goods.
Bush signed the measure into law aboard Air Force One en route to a campaign rally in Pennsylvania, forgoing a public signing ceremony that would have attracted attention to the tax cuts less than two weeks before Election Day.

Jury Backs Union Carbide in Asbestos Suit

A jury has ruled that Union Carbide Corp. was not fraudulent in how it sold asbestos for use in Kelly-Moore Paint Co.'s interior finishing products - a verdict an attorney for the paint company said probably will force it into bankruptcy in the face of tens of thousands of lawsuits.
Kelly-Moore had sued Union Carbide for $1.3 billion plus punitive damages, claiming the Dow Chemical Co. subsidiary had hidden from it the dangers of asbestos.

WTC Rescue Hero Sues Bush and Others under RICO Statute

Now, this native of Puerto Rico and remarkable American hero is taking his 9-11 activism to an even higher level. He has commenced, as Plaintiff, a federal court lawsuit against George W. Bush, Richard B. Cheney, Donald H. Rumsfeld and others alleging that they and others were complicit in the 9-11 attacks, and either planned the attacks, or had foreknowledge of the attacks and permitted them to succeed, in order to exploit a “New Pearl Harbor” to launch wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. (The phrase “New Pearl Harbor” comes from a declaration of principles by the neo-conservative “Project for the New American Century,” in which it is proposed as an event needed to steel American public opinion to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, and U.S. military domination of the Middle East.)
Attorney Berg acknowledges that Rodriguez’s action will shock and offend many Americans. But he urges critics to read the detailed complaint, posted on the internet at www.911forthetruth.com, before forming conclusions. “The ‘Official Story’ of what actually took place on 9-11 is a lie,” Berg flatly maintains. “We do not pretend to have put together a full and definitive account of how, and by whom, the attacks were carried out. But information reported in mainstream media, and viewed in the light of common sense and the laws of physics, demonstrate that the ‘Official Story,’ examined closely, is not credible. The ‘Official Story’ contains an alarming number of inconsistencies and implausibilities. The major media have reported many of the raw facts, but have studiously avoided analysis, because doing so would reveal that the government is lying to us. The 9-11 Commission, a suspect collection of government and intelligence insiders, restated without question or examination all essential elements of the ‘Official Story’ of the actual events of 9-11. It failed almost completely to refute, or even to mention, the great body of evidence that suggests the ‘Official Story’ cannot be true, and it failed completely to hold anyone accountable. From the foregoing facts, it ought to be obvious that a cover-up, or a “limited hang-out” admitting only bureaucratic mistakes for which no one is to be held accountable, has taken place and is continuing.”
Text of the suit.

By the Thousands, Soldiers 50 and Older are Being Deployed

Thomas is among a group of soldiers age 50 and over being called to active duty . Like many, he is a "citizen soldier," a member of the National Guard or Reserves, where soldiers serve part-time. They tend to be older than their active-duty counterparts and are increasingly being deployed overseas to augment active-duty troops.
Of the 160,000 men and women deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, 4,119 are 50 or older. At a time in life when most people are looking forward to retirement or eyeing Florida real estate, these soldiers are leaving behind corporate jobs and grandkids. Some even voluntarily postpone military retirement to go to war.
"The hardest part about going," Thomas said, "is when my granddaughter asks me why I'm not going to be home for Christmas."

CIA withholds damning report that points at senior officials

It is shocking: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names. Although the report by the inspector general's office of the CIA was completed in June, it has not been made available to the congressional intelligence committees that mandated the study almost two years ago.
"It is infuriating that a report which shows that high-level people were not doing their jobs in a satisfactory manner before 9/11 is being suppressed," an intelligence official who has read the report told me, adding that "the report is potentially very embarrassing for the administration, because it makes it look like they weren't interested in terrorism before 9/11, or in holding people in the government responsible afterward."

U.S. to Enforce Rules for Mail to Canada

Most mail to Canada must bear the complete name and address of both sender and recipient or it won't be allowed into the country, the U.S. Postal Service said Wednesday. The tighter addressing requirements are in response to increased security.
Even such sender or recipient identifications as "Grandma" or "Aunt Ruth" can result in mail being rejected, the agency said.