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Friday, November 14, 2003
Erno in his glorious Piffle wear:
He wore it for Election Day.
posted by jeev |
7:38 PM |
 
The Wingnut Debate Dictionary, a sample:AAAacoulteration: providing outward trappings of evidence in order to acculturate viewers to believe obvious lies. (renato/DavidNYC)
Ad Ad Ad Hominem: Complaining that critics are making ad hominem attacks on you after you have made ad hominem attacks on them. AKA Triple Strength Preparation AH. (Hawthorne Wingo)
Adelmania: The insistence that pre-emption must be continued as a primary foreign policy, precisely because it has proven to be such an incredible disaster. It may also be used with other failed Movementarian policies, such as tax cuts for the rich, "Healthy Forests," and so on. Or: "You can't argue with failure." Named for Defense Policy Board member (and pool-boy of Satan), Ken Adelman. (Seraphiel)
ad hankering: The practice of accusing anyone who disagrees with you of ad hominem attacks, even if what they said had nothing whatsoever to do with an ad hominem. (Pandagon)
Ann Coulter does this all the time. When someone dares to point out one of the nigh-on-infinite lies and misrepresentations in her "books", she responds, "Why are you attacking me?"
Print it out and keep it on hand for easy reference!
Thanks, Melinda
posted by jeev |
12:41 PM |
Wednesday, November 12, 2003
Breaking news: the war is (duh) still going on:And so it's official: "Postwar Iraq" is just another term for "Iraq War�Phase II."
In a heavily guarded news conference in Baghdad today, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, called the state of conflict there a "war." John Burns, the New York Times correspondent covering the event, quotes Sanchez's aides noting that the general's choice of words was deliberate�his way of injecting realism into the debate back in Washington. "We are taking the fight into the safe havens of the enemy in the heartland of the country," Sanchez stated. That sounds like war, all right.
posted by jeev |
2:20 PM |
From a different front:The Bush administration is seeking to block a group of American troops who were tortured in Iraqi prisons during the Persian Gulf war in 1991 from collecting any of the hundreds of millions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets they won last summer in a federal court ruling against the government of Saddam Hussein.
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In a court challenge that the administration is winning so far but is not eager to publicize, administration lawyers have argued that Iraqi assets frozen in bank accounts in the United States are needed for Iraqi reconstruction and that the judgment won by the 17 former American prisoners should be overturned. Yeah, you gotta make sure you've got enough to pay off Halliburton.
posted by jeev |
2:14 PM |
The Diebold story just keeps getting better (and closer to home): Citing concerns that Diebold Election Systems installed uncertified software on some electronic voting systems in a California county without the state's knowledge, officials are forcing the company to pay for an audit of all the company's voting machines used in the state in order to win certification for a new model.
An investigation of how and when the software was installed in Alameda County is still underway. But Tony Miller, special projects coordinator for Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, said Monday that the state would certify Diebold's AccuVote-TSx touch-screen voting machine for the time being under several conditions. Wired has the story.
posted by jeev |
11:17 AM |
Monday, November 10, 2003
The Big Problem: Here's how badly things are going for George W. Bush in Iraq: When a reporter asked last week if he could promise there would be fewer U.S. troops in Iraq a year from now than there are today, the president proclaimed it a "trick question" and refused to answer.
This ought to be good news for the Democrats' chances of winning back the White House in 2004. Since the planes hit the towers on the morning of Sept. 11th, the rally-around-the-flag president has appeared all but unbeatable. But with each passing day now -- with each military coffin the administration won't let the cameras see -- Bush is growing just a little more vulnerable. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released last weekend showed that a majority of Americans disapprove of the way Bush is handling Iraq. Americans are wondering whether the war was worth it. They're worrying that U.S. troops are getting bogged down, that Bush has started a war he can't finish.
They just don't seem to want any of the Democratic candidates to take his place.
In the zero-sum game of politics, you'd expect the Democrats' stars to rise as Bush's begins to fade. But it's not happening. Bush's approval ratings are dropping fast, but the Democratic candidates aren't rising up to fill the void. In head-to-head polling matchups, Bush beats each of the Democrats now running against him. From Salon.
posted by jeev |
1:56 PM |
A different kind of Ballmer
posted by jeev |
10:55 AM |
All right, this is just weird:A wristwatch-size device that turns a user's finger into an earpiece has been developed by a Japanese mobile phone maker and could be commercially available by 2005.
Called Finger Whisper, the device, developed by the Multimedia Laboratories of NTT DoCoMo, uses a wristband to convert sounds into vibrations that run through the finger to the ear.
The device uses NTT DoCoMo's Whisper Wearable Terminal, which allows users to answer calls by touching their forefinger to their thumb and then inserting their forefinger into their ear. Gives wet willies an entirely different spin.
posted by jeev |
10:48 AM |
Sunday, November 09, 2003
More on the Diebold electronic voting front. A sample question from a worker entrusted with the Future of Our Democracy:I need some answers! Our department is being audited by the County. I have been waiting for someone to give me an explanation as to why Precinct 216 gave Al Gore a minus 16022 [votes] when it was uploaded. Will someone please explain this so that I have the information to give the auditor instead of standing here "looking dumb". Want to see more?
Via This Modern World and Sylvia
posted by jeev |
3:20 PM |
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