] "Our government should respect every person and protect
] the institution of marriage," he said. "There is not a
] contradiction between these responsibilities."

This is just retarded. I mean, all other arguements about equal rights or anything else aside, the government has no responsibility to pass laws to protect a religious sacrament, let alone change the very fabric of our country's legal system by making it an ammendment.

Granted this religious sacrament has legal meaning (inheritance, etc), but this, as Bush says, is not about denying gays those rights. It comes down to protecting the religious significance of the word "marriage," and the government has no business fucking with that

CNN.com - Bush calls for same-sex marriage-ban amendment - Feb. 24, 2004

So I was talking with Decius the other day about the NYT. If you folks haven't noticed you can access NYT articles through google news without needing an account. Google simply adds a parameter "partner=google" to the end of the NYT URL. I figured Decius and I could could write a script that checks for recommended memes for NYT stories and insert this at the end, not allow for people without accounts to read stories.

However this is not what NYT checks for. If you go to a NYT article through a standard google search, the "partner=google" is not added to the URL, but you can still access the story So how does NYTs do this? With the "referer" field on a standard HTTP GET request.

So tonight I had an idea. WGET! it has a nice litte option "--referer=". Sure enough, you can grab NYT stories using WGET.

Thus to read for example the Theory-vs-reality story, using:

wget http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/opinion/23HERB.html&OQ=pagewantedQ3DprintQ26positionQ3D

will save the login screen but

wget --referer=http://www.google.com http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/23/opinion/23HERB.html&OQ=pagewantedQ3DprintQ26positionQ3D

will grab the page. Yes yes yes, I know, as Decius told me: "Just get a freaky account dude."

An Attempt to Uncover the Truth About September 11th, 2001

[snip]

A facinating read (been at it over 2 hours now). While some of the info it presents I take with a grain of salt, the doucmentation on this website is superb, and very well written.

9-11 Research

Yup, here it is if you missed it. The Daily Show on the Meet the Press Interview. The facial expressions are something that didn't make the transcript. This might have been a very different interview had I seen it on video.

On Lisa Rein's Indictment: Daily Show On The Shrub's Meet The Press Interview

] Personally, I don't see anything there that raises a red flag
] for me. There are plenty of other things that Bush says or
] does that I find annoying or inexcusable. But this
] 30-years-ago suspected-AWOL non-story is not one of them.
]
] Can we please go back to discussing *real* issues now?

Where I come from lying on your resume gets you canned. Period. I agree with k's earlier comment: this *is* a big deal, this *is* a real issue.

RE: Alabama commander regrets Bush comments

Last week it went around on Memestreams that Bush never used the phrase "45 minutes" when talking about Iraqs ability to launch WMD. However he did. This is more than nitpicking. He didn't use vague terms but used a specific time period that simply was not true to push Americans to support a war.

] President George W Bush twice said Iraq could launch a
] chemical or biological attack within 45 minutes even
] though the CIA had not verified the claim, it emerged
] yesterday.
]
] George W Bush: facing a political backlash
]
] Although Mr Bush attributed the claim to the British
] government, a White House release issued at the same time
] stated it as fact and did not say where it had come from.
]
] "According to the British government, the Iraqi regime
] could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little
] as 45 minutes after the order were given," Mr Bush said
] in the Rose Garden on Sept 26.

Bush did say '45 minutes' as justification for war

] Russert: On Friday, you announced a committee, commission to look
] into intelligence failures regarding the Iraq war and our entire
] intelligence community...Prime Minister Blair has set up a similar
] commission in Great Britain....His is going to report back in
] July. Ours is not going to be until March of 2005, five months
] after the presidential election...Shouldn't the American people
] have the benefit of the commission before the election?
]
] President Bush: Well, the reason why we gave it time is because we
] didn't want it to be hurried...

--# I'll BET you don't...oh, and he rambles on about the importance of intelligence (ha! irony!) for quite awhile here, too.

] Russert: Will you testify before the commission?
]
] President Bush: This commission? You know, I don't
] testify? I will be glad to visit with them. I will be
] glad to share with them knowledge. I will be glad to
] make recommendations, if they ask for some.

--# You don't testify? So now you're exempt from the bloody system you work for?! And, yes, he rambles on for quite some time more without actually saying much of anything except that he's "glad"

] Russert: There is another commission right now looking
] into September 11th...Will you testify before that commission?
]
] President Bush: We have given extraordinary cooperation with
] Chairmen Kean and Hamilton. As you know, we made an agreement on
] what's called "Presidential Daily Briefs," and they could see the
] information the CIA provided me that is unique, by the way, to
] have provided what's called the PDB...

--# you guessed right again! He rambles on for much longer talking about truth and how he expects to be personally responsible for the second coming and all that for quite some time. Luckily, the interviewer isn't again so easily distracted...

] Russert: Would you submit for questioning, though, to the 9/11
] Commission?
]
] President Bush: Perhaps, perhaps.

Thus, our illustrious leader who manages to say a lot (and I encourage you to read the full text) without saying much of anything. Wait until _after_ the election so the war commission isn't "hurried"...what a crock of shit. Anger...rising...must...destroy...approval rating.

NBC -- Meet the Press with GWB

] "The facts are becoming clearer," Bush said. "As the
] chief weapons inspector said, we have not yet found the
] stockpiles of weapons that we thought were there. Yet,
] the survey group has uncovered some of what the dictator
] was up to."
]
] Hussein, he said, had "the capability to produce weapons
] of mass destruction," "the scientists and technology in
] place to make those weapons," "the necessary
] infrastructure to produce weapons of mass destruction"
] and "the intent to arm his regime with weapons of mass
] destruction."

And the dented cans under my sink have the potential to produce botchulism, a WMD. Good lord I can almost heard him running backwards on this issue.

] "And Saddam Hussein had something else," Bush said. "He
] had a record of using weapons of mass destruction against
] his enemies and against innocent Iraqi citizens."]

oh yeah, those those WMD's we gave him I forgot about those

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB82/handshake300.jpg

When you give someone chemical and biological weapons, they don't come in a tupperware jar. We gave him this infrastructure to support them as well. So of course he has "capabilities"

Bush Stands Firmly Behind His Decision to Invade Iraq (washingtonpost.com)

] - The world's demand for the last many years, including in
] early 2003, was for Iraq to comply with U.N. demands to
] disarm.

I believe Israel is still holding land the UN told it to give up more than 25 years ago. I'm not saying Israel is wrong, I'm just saying this is a bullshit reason and you know it is.

] - Iraq was clearly not complying with those demands.

Ditto

] - Something had to be done, and most countries didn't have
] the balls to do it.

Most countries respect the diplomatic process, and understand, unlike Mister Bush, that you can't have what you want right now

] - We did.

Violating 230 years of Policy, and severly, if not mortally hurting NATO in the process.

Taking power into your own hands, while effective, hurts you in the long run.

] - The war was justified.

Really? Because minus the immediate threat of WMD I see no reason for a preemptive invading of another country. I have discussed this in my memestream before. All reasons given are things we either do ourselves, or ignore when our allies do because it suits us best.

] - And the world is a better place without Saddam.

The fact that you, or even the entire human population feels "the world is a better place" because something occured is never proof that what occured was fair or just or right to do.

RE: Blair Defends War Decision

] ] Iraq remained a very dangerous place in terms of WMD
]
] ] capabilities, even though we found no large stockpiles
] of
] ] weapons.

Come on. This is like saying My living room rug is a very dangerous place in terms of high-voltage-shock-death-from-static-electricity even though it hasn't happened yet.

Not only did Key not find large stockpiles, he found no stockpiles, let alone those stock piles that were supposely able to be launched on 45 minutes notice, which Bush harped on.

Face the facts: Bush Lied on the biggest reason for war. Saying after the fact "Well its still ok because, [Saddam | Iraq] was [BLANK] doesn't change the fact that Bush lied, that [BLANK] is not justification for starting a preemptive/protective war, and that there are countless examples of where the US turn a blind eye to [BLANK] in other countries where it suits us best.

RE: FOXNews.com Transcript: Interview with David Kay, February 1, 2004