Alternate Entries

Friday, October 22, 2004

Via Digby, more wolves, the cute kind. None of them are named Karl.

Wolf cubs

I am probably not the target audience for this spot, since my sympathies are with the wolves, which were slaughtered and tortured by Western settlers and hunted to near extinction. Is there an Elmer Fudd hunter in this commercial symbolizing Bush? I sincerely hope not, because in a fateful standoff between a hunter and a pack of wolves, I will find myself cheering for the wolfpack to rip the hunter to pieces, and this could be construed as a desire to see harm befall our president. I saw what happened to poor Nicholson Baker and I don't need that kind of grief.

posted by jeev | 6:35 PM |

Wednesday, October 20, 2004

An answer for the rest of us.

The bulge is, gasp, an iPod

Courtesy Happy Go Larry.

posted by jeev | 8:38 AM |

Tuesday, October 19, 2004

Josh Marshall has a useful summary of where the Sinclair mess is as of today. Apparently, despite the fact that TV guides listed "Stolen Honor" as what you would see when you turned on your local Sinclair station, Sinclair now says they aren't going to show the actual "documentary:" no, they're going to use it as a starting point for a hard-hitting look at that awful Librul Media:

As nearly as I can figure it, from their press release, what Sinclair now plans is an hourlong special which is based largely on the material from 'Stolen Honor' but also frames this in a larger 'context' of liberal media bias and how bad it is that all the other networks haven't run 'Stolen Honor' and presumably what a rough shake Sinclair's gotten for trying to run 'Stolen Honor.' That's balance.

Or, you know, maybe not.

posted by jeev | 10:09 PM |

Lee Buttrill
"Where Are They?"
"We were given these ideas that there were weapons of mass destruction. But where are the weapons of mass destruction? They said they were so sure they knew where they were, but where are they? When we were over there, we looked around. I was on an intelligence gathering team and looked. Looking in scientific installations. We never found anything. It was just a lie. It wasn't a proper use of American troops. I wasn't a proper use of my life, of my friends' lives, or the Marines who I've seen die around me. It's not a proper use."
=================
One of Errol Morris' new campaign ads.

posted by jeev | 2:44 PM |

From the LA Times:

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.
[]
According to the intelligence official, who spoke to me on condition of anonymity, release of the report, which represents an exhaustive 17-month investigation by an 11-member team within the agency, has been "stalled." First by acting CIA Director John McLaughlin and now by Porter J. Goss, the former Republican House member (and chairman of the Intelligence Committee) who recently was appointed CIA chief by President Bush.

The official stressed that the report was more blunt and more specific than the earlier bipartisan reports produced by the Bush-appointed Sept. 11 commission and Congress.

"What all the other reports on 9/11 did not do is point the finger at individuals, and give the how and what of their responsibility. This report does that," said the intelligence official. "The report found very senior-level officials responsible."

Okay, hold up your hands, those of you who are surprised.

posted by jeev | 11:14 AM |

Did you know California voters are supposed to be offered a paper ballot if they are concerned about no-paper-trail electronic voting? Neither did I. And, apparently, that's just the way the Santa Clara county voting commission likes it:

Santa Clara County, CA - Pollworkers in Santa Clara County are being trained not to offer voters a chance to use paper ballots instead of electronic voting machines, the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) has learned. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley mandated in May that all polling places offer a paper ballot option, which would allow people concerned about e-voting machine reliability a chance to vote on paper ballots at the polls. But pollworkers in Santa Clara County are being instructed not to tell voters that this option is available. Instead, they will make paper ballots available only if voters specifically request them.

Ed Cherlin, a pollworker being trained in Santa Clara County, said he was very disturbed to learn that he was not supposed to mention the paper option. "I object to the government telling me that I can't tell people about their rights," he said. Representatives of the voting commissions in Orange County and Riverside confirm that they also will not be informing voters about the paper option at the polls. There are ten counties in California using paperless e-voting machines known as DREs. It is not clear at this time whether all ten are adopting similar policies.

Via Boing Boing.

posted by jeev | 9:16 AM |

Monday, October 18, 2004

The bottom line on the Mary Cheney brouhaha:

"Here's the impact it had: two days of nonstop cable talk about how Bush lost the debate was avoided for them," said Joe Lockhart, a senior Kerry adviser. "It doesn't mean it hurt us. I give them credit. They lost the debate and they scrambled and they came up with the best hand they had."

posted by jeev | 10:16 AM |

Sunday, October 17, 2004

Watch the entire Frontline special on the two candidates in the words of their friends: "The Choice 2004." Amazing.

posted by jeev | 1:27 PM |

I've been playing with OSXPlanet, a "live" desktop for Macs. You pick a planet, how you want to view it, and, in the case of Earth, other data (cloud cover, storms, earthquakes, etc) you want displayed, and it creates an image, updated as often as you choose, as your wallpaper. Here's a capture from this evening:

Earth with clouds