] We as a nation are living beyond our means. The federal
] government is in debt. Most state and local governments
] are in debt (their form of deficit spending is to issue
] bonds). Most assuredly the American consumer is
] dangerously in debt. And, finally, the American dollar is
] losing its purchasing power steadily and daily. Remember,
] debt is the promise of future income to pay for today's
] consumption. Nobody is guaranteed a future, much less
] future income.

A Storm Is Coming by Charley Reese

] MR. RUSSERT: The last time you were on in January of '01
] after the president had been elected, we had this
] exchange. Let me show it to you:
]
] (Videotape, January 21, 2001):
]
] MR. RUSSERT: You're heading over to the national
] cathedral for a prayer service with our new president.
] What are you gonna pray for?
]
] MR. ROVE: Wisdom and patience. Humility. That's
] important, I think, for people who come here to realize
] that we are here for only a time and we have an
] obligation of service and we need to keep things in
] perspective.
]
] (End videotape)
]
] MR. RUSSERT: Wisdom, patience, and humility, the
] watchwords for the second term?
]
] MR. ROVE: Yes. Those that the Gods destroy they first
] make prideful. So, absolutely.

MSNBC - Rove tells reds to chill out

] Roy Michael Moore has squatted for several years in a
] cave at the US nuclear weapons facility Los Alamos
] National Laboratory. His solar-powered home features a
] glass door, stove, and marijuana garden. After smoke from
] his stove alerted authorities, Moore was busted for
] possession, posted bail, and was released. His website
] micromike.com explains his scientific and philosophical
] theories about cosmology and astrophysics.

Boing Boing: Los Alamos hermit - Its Lazlo!

] In February, the president's new budget will probably
] call for sizable cuts in almost every program except
] defense and homeland security.
]
] "Then will begin a long fight ... that will not just
] cause tremendous discomfort to Democrats but will rend
] the Republican Party," says Robert Reischauer, president
] of the Urban Institute in Washington.
]
]"The next four years are going to be unusually challenging
] from the standpoint of America's economic stewardship,"
] warns Stephen Roach, chief economist of Morgan Stanley,
] an investment firm. "Never before has the United States
] pushed the envelope to this degree.... The US economy is
] an accident waiting to happen."

Roach's complete comments are here:
http://www.morganstanley.com/GEFdata/digests/20040823-mon.html
He is referring to debt problems that many economists have been sounding the alarm about for over a year

After all, goes the logic, the world has learned to live with America’s outsize deficits. Why can’t it continue to do so indefinitely? In my view, this is yet another example of the “greater fool theory” that took NASDAQ to 5000 four and a half years ago. All the classic symptoms of a US current-account adjustment are now evident.

Red states won - now the red ink | csmonitor.com

] Iran and European nations reached a preliminary agreement
] about Iran's nuclear program at talks hoped to avoid a
] U.N. showdown, but all countries involved still must
] approve it, Iran's chief negotiator said Sunday.

You can probably chalk this up as President Bush's first foreign policy win in his second term. The Iranians were probably holding out to see if a Kerry win would bring the United States to the table on this. A Bush Presidency means same old story, and the Iranians took what they could get from Europe and dropped the matter.

ABC News: Preliminary Pact Reached on Iran Nukes

It begins tonight. And with it, the countdown to Pakistan, as well.

US Forces Begin Moving Into Falluja

noteworthy wrote:
] David Brooks takes a crack at debunking the Dems.

Thats what he does for a living, isn't it?

] There was no disproportionate surge in the evangelical vote
] this year. Evangelicals made up the same share of the
] electorate this year as they did in 2000.

WRONG. The following story was linked from Pew's website:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/05/politics/campaign/05religion.html

"What this suggests is that the Bush coalition wasn't just evangelicals," said John C. Green, a professor of political science and director of the Ray C. Bliss Institute of Applied Politics at the University of Akron. "It included a much larger group of more traditional religious people, many of them outside of the evangelical tradition. What they have in common is that all of these groups tend to hold traditional views on sexual behavior."

Voters who identified themselves as white born-again or evangelical Christians made up 23 percent of voters this year. Seventy-eight percent of them voted for the president - clearly an increase over the 2000 election (but it is unclear by how much, since the question used to identify evangelicals in surveys of voters leaving the polls was asked differently four years ago, making a direct comparison impossible). Professor Green said his polling showed an increase in the evangelical vote for President Bush from 71 percent in 2000 to 76 percent this year.

] If you ask an inept question, you get a misleading result.

I agree, but problems with the data so far are not a license to fill in the blanks with your own favorite explanation.

The fact is that Kerry sucked. I said at the time of the Dem's convention that the focus on the economy was stupid and that the number one issue would be terrorism. I was right and wrong. The number one issue was "moral values" (and I'm going to continue to put that in quotes because I think its an oxymoron), but the number two issue was Terrorism. Where Kerry failed was by not focusing on Terrorism.

Having said that, I would feel much much better about this election if it seemed like the American people were saying what a few of my more educated friends are saying: "We agree with you, Tom, that that there are significant problems with the way Bush is handling things (Enemy combatants, Iraq war justification/timing/diplomacy), but we feel that Kerry sucks, and so we couldn't vote for him." I can respect that. The American people know better then I do whats best for them.

Thats not what I'm hearing. Kerry did better in the debates! This wasn't about him. This was about Terrorism and Moral Values, and I cannot escape the conclusion that the election seemed to reach to some of the ugliest aspects of this nation's character. I'm not angry because Kerry lost. I expected that. I'm angry because of what seems to have won.

I'm angry because Gay Marriage has taken center stage in the Moral Values disc... [ Read More (0.2k in body) ]

RE: The Values-Vote Myth

] NSA initiatives in enhancing software security cover both
] proprietary and open source software, and we have
] successfully used both proprietary and open source models
] in our research activities. NSA's work to enhance the
] security of software is motivated by one simple
] consideration: use our resources as efficiently as
] possible to give NSA's customers the best possible
] security options in the most widely employed products.
] The objective of the NSA research program is to develop
] technologic advances that can be shared with the software
] development community through a variety of transfer
] mechanisms. NSA does not favor or promote any specific
] software product or business model. Rather, NSA is
] promoting enhanced security.

NSA's guides to securing machines

NSA - Security Configuration Guides

] A U.S. judge has handed down a jail sentence to a US
] spammer recommending that he stay behind bars for nine
] years.

Technology News: Security: US Spammer Facing Nine Years in Jail

County by county 3d breakdown with Y axis showing margins.

Best Election Data visualization yet