] Afghanistan's historic presidential election closed on
] Saturday without any of the feared large-scale violence,
] but the vote was thrown into turmoil when most candidates
] said a flawed process made the poll invalid.
]
] All 15 of President Hamid Karzai's rivals said they were
] withdrawing from the election because systems to prevent
] illegal multiple voting had gone awry. The move
] effectively left Karzai as the only candidate in the
] fray.

Election in Afghanistan questionable

] (From the [Senate] diaries, Cheney presided over the Senate a
] grand total of two times the past four years -- just as
] many times as Edwards, who also did so twice. Slightly
] edited -- kos)
]
] "Now, in my capacity as vice president, I am the
] president of Senate, the presiding officer. I'm up in the
] Senate most Tuesdays when they're in session."
]
] --Dick Cheney
]
] The extended entry has the presiding officers over the
] last four years for every Tuesday session.

Cheney Attendance at Senate

] "Now we have the power to launch a missile with a 2,000
] km (1,250 mile) range," the news agency IRNA quoted
] influential former President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani as
] saying. "Iran is determined to improve its military
] capabilities."

Iran seems rather undeterred

] We stood idly by while Baghdad was ransacked. As the
] occupying power, we had an obligation to maintain law and
] order, but we failed to live up to it. If we had cared
] about the people of Iraq we should have had more troops
] available for the occupation than we needed for the
] invasion. We should have provided protection not only
] for the oil ministry but also the other ministries,
] museums and hospitals. Baghdad and the country's other
] cities were destroyed after we occupied them. When we
] encountered resistance, we employed methods that
] alienated and humiliated the population. The way we
] invaded homes, and the way we treated prisoners generated
] resentment and rage.

GeorgeSoros.com

Hamdi's case, decided by the Supreme Court earlier this year, was supposed to represent a high-water mark for American freedoms during wartime. He had fought for and won his day in court, an opportunity to question his captors, and a chance at national vindication at the end of it all. Hamdi's name stood for the proposition that the Bush administration couldn't run roughshod over the courts and the law in its pursuit of the war on terror. It now stands for precisely the opposite: With a yawn and a shrug, the administration sidestepped the courts and the judicial process once again, abandoning this criminal prosecution altogether and erasing the episode from our national memory. Hamdi has been stripped of his citizenship and his freedom to travel, and sent packing to his family. The rights and processes guaranteed him by the Supreme Court have been yanked away one last time, by an executive branch that held him for years for no reason and smugly claims now that it was finished with him anyhow.

Nevermind - Hamdi wasn't so bad after all. By Dahlia Lithwick

] COLBERT: CBS is in chaos, it's
] unsafe, riven by internal rivalries. If you ask me,
] respected, reputable outsiders need to be brought in to
] help the rebuilding effort.
]
] STEWART: ... at CBS News?
]
] COLBERT: Yeah, at CBS news! What possible other unrelated
] situation could my words be equally applicable to?!

Daily Show Transcript on the Great Leader's Mistake

] The Republican Party acknowledged yesterday sending mass
] mailings to residents of two states warning that
] "liberals" seek to ban the Bible. It said the mailings
] were part of its effort to mobilize religious voters for
] President Bush.
]
] The mailings include images of the Bible labeled "banned"
] and of a gay marriage proposal labeled "allowed." A
] mailing to Arkansas residents warns: "This will be
] Arkansas if you don't vote." A similar mailing was sent
] to West Virginians.
]
] In an e-mail message, Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman
] for the Republican National Committee, confirmed that the
] party had sent the mailings.

That's the national party that sent these out. Not some crazy locals. Not a 527 group.

Republicans Admit Mailing Campaign Literature Saying Liberals Will Ban the Bible

This is no longer an interesting coincidence. It is an unmistakable message from God. I hope everyone is listening.

message-from-God.gif (GIF Image, 744x900 pixels)

] What if there were private armies totalling 275,000 men,
] armed with machine guns, assault rifles (legal again!),
] rocket-propelled grenades, and mortar launchers, hiding
] out in dangerous urban areas of cities all over the
] country? What if they completely controlled Seattle,
] Portland, San Francisco, Salt Lake City, Las Vegas,
] Denver and Omaha, such that local police and Federal
] troops could not go into those cities?
]
] What if the Air Force routinely (I mean daily or weekly)
] bombed Billings, Montana, Flint, Michigan, Watts in Los
] Angeles, Philadelphia, Anacostia in Washington, DC, and
] other urban areas, attempting to target "safe houses" of
] "criminal gangs", but inevitably killing a lot of
] children and little old ladies?
]
] What if there were virtually no commercial air traffic in
] the country? What if many roads were highly dangerous,
] especially Interstate 95 from Richmond to Washington, DC,
] and I-95 and I-91 up to Boston? If you got on I-95
] anywhere along that over 500-mile stretch, you would risk
] being carjacked, kidnapped, or having your car sprayed
] with machine gun fire.

What if America was Iraq?

] Government experts are investigating a claim that an
] unarmed nuclear bomb, lost off the Georgia coast at the
] height of the Cold War, might have been found, an Air
] Force spokesman said Monday.
]
] The hydrogen bomb was lost in the Atlantic Ocean in 1958
] following a collision of a B-47 bomber and an F-86
] fighter.
]
] A group led by retired Air Force Lt. Col. Derek Duke of
] Statesboro, Georgia, said in July that it had found a
] large object underwater near Savannah that was emitting
] high levels of radioactivity, according to an Associated
] Press report.

CNN.com - Lost nuclear bomb possibly found - Sep 13, 2004