] Most confusing sign of the day: "If Jesus weren't a Jew,
] he'd be an American."

[ That's ostensibly a Bush supporter, at last saturday's BC'04 rally in Ohio.

Really, just wow, people are DUMB.

I think i've recieved enough proof that if there is a god, he's not vengeful, but calm and calculated. An angry, vengeful god would just be smiting fools left and right, all the time. -k]

Campaign Notebook - chillicothegazette.com

] Deaf children thrown together in a school in Nicaragua
] without any type of formal instruction invented their own
] sign language -- a sophisticated system that has evolved
] and grown, researchers reported on Friday.

[ It sucks that it took neglect to give rise, but the results are truly interesting... -k]

Deaf Kids in Nicaragua Give Birth to New Language

] 'Bring them on!" President Bush challenged the early
] Iraqi insurgency in July of last year. ... Almost
] every day, in campaign speeches, Bush speaks with
] bravado about how he is "winning" in Iraq. "Our strategy
] is succeeding," he boasted to the National Guard
] convention on Tuesday.
]
] But, according to the US military's leading strategists
] and prominent retired generals, Bush's war is already
] lost.

[ There's not even a single key quote to meme here. Every single paragraph is damning. Ret. Gen. Odom led the NSA, Ret. Gen. Hoare headed Cent. Com., Jeffrey Record and W. Andrew Terrill are professors of strategy at two US war collges.

These aren't armchair pundits like we are... they know a few things, and they bring up failures on a ton of fronts. Go read it. -k]

Guardian Unlimited | Guardian daily comment | Far graver than Vietnam

] For the first time, MIT researchers have incorporated a
] plant's ability to convert sunlight to energy into a
] solid-state electronic %u201Cspinach sandwich%u201D
] device that may one day power laptops and cell phones.
]

[ Cool science... -k]

PhysOrg: Spinach May Soon Power Mobile Devices

] I am writing to encourage the Committee on Standards of
] Official Conduct to create an investigative subcommittee
] to examine the conduct of Representative Dennis Hastert
] under House Rule 43, clause 1: "A Member, officer, or
] employee of the House of Representatives shall conduct
] himself at all times in a manner which shall reflect
] creditably on the House of Representatives."
]
] ...
]
] Representative Hastert has had numerous opportunities
] to apologize for and retract his remarks. He was explicitly
] given the opportunity to clarify his remarks during the
] August 29th interview, and he chose instead to repeat the
] innuendo. Not only has he declined to apologize, he has
] made new, false accusations.
]
] Such conduct brings discredit on the House. It is
] inconsistent with basic notions of fair play and open
] debate that are the basis of our Constitutional system...
]
] Members of both political parties have recently decried
] “the politics of personal destruction.” It is time for the
] Committee on Standards of Official Conduct to formally
] declare that smear tactics and innuendo are discrediting
] our political process and the House of Representatives as an
] institution by taking appropriate action to investigate and
] censure Representative Hastert for these outrageous remarks.
]
] Sincerely,
]
] George Soros

[ Soros is not fucking around. Not that i expect anything to happen, but still. -k]

TPM : Soros' Letter to the House CSOC

] The word is out and about now that the CBS Bush National
] Guard memos are not forgeries but rather recreations of
] actual documents authored by Lt. Col. Killian.
]
] That theory gains credence from the fact that Killian's
] secretary has now said that though she believes these
] memos are not real that their contents reflect real
] documents that once existed in Killian's personal file
] -- ones she herself typed.
]
] There's a word, though, for these sorts of recreations,
] if that's what they are: forgeries.
]
] There's no sense or possibility of getting around that.
]
] The late news that two of CBS's own experts had questions
] about the authenticity of these documents is really all
] you need to know to see that this piece never should have
] run as it did. At a minimum, when the original story ran,
] CBS should have shared with viewers the questions their
] own experts were apparently raising about the documents'
] authenticity.

[ Good job CBS. Really, fine job. Any vestige of actual utility that may have come out of Bush's still probable lack of service is gone now. This kills any attention people may have paid to a legitimate story.

And, on the record, i retract my criticism of Kerry's response to the initial stories on these documents. He either knew they were highly likely to be bullshit, or his play-it-safe tactic simply paid off, but either way he was right not to get himself tied into this debacle.

"Journalists." -k]

TPM : Bush Nat'l Guard Docs

] She said her manager was standing in another room and she
] asked him if that meant for her to go back to work or go
] home. The manager told her to go back to work, but he
] came back a few minutes later and said, "I reckon you're
] fired. You could either work for him or John Kerry,"
] Gobbell said.

[ There are a few interesting things about this story, not the least of which is, of course, the fundamental issue of firing someone purely based on their political leanings.

As the story reveals further down, after hearing about the incident, John Kerry hired the woman : "He'd read the part where Phil said I could either work for him or work for John Kerry. He said, 'you let him know you're working for me as of today.' I was just so shocked." This is pretty obviously a total PR move, since it's not clear what skills she can bring to the campaign, but you couldn't buy a better story if you tried.

One other compelling bit is that it seems that the story was broken, and almost completely carried, by a single member of the DialyKOS community, in their diary (personal blog). If you were looking for compelling evidence of a benefit of distributed media, seems like this could be it. -k]

Bumper Sticker Insubordination - A Kerry fan gets fired, and then hired, for her politics. By Timothy Noah

] We produce super-quality limited edition watches in
] outragous designs never made before.
]
] Combining 70's style with future modern day concepts.

[ I love japan. -k]

Pimp Watches - 70's Style vs Future Concepts

] "By coordinating the accelerated timing of these
] dispositive motions while it continues to block critical
] discovery, IBM would achieve what this court's Amended
] Scheduling Order -- over IBM's stringent objection --
] refused to allow IBM to do: force adjudication of this
] case without adequate opportunity for SCO to develop its
] proof," the filing states. "IBM's coordinated motions
] would thus nullify the Amended Scheduling Order."

[ Please, PLEASE, kill SCO soon. If they hadn't said categorically that they *had*, as in, already could prove, hundreds of instances of (C) violation, then i'd be more sympathetic. But they fucking made that up. Crimony. -k]

SCO Stalls for Time

For the second time this year, I'm being forced to change hosts for my personal domain. I've normally hosted my stuff on various friend's machines, however I'm strongly considering abandoning that strategy. I need stability.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a good host? My bandwidth usage is not that heavy. PHP, SSL-IMAP, and (https) Webmail are must-haves. TLS capable SMTP that supports SMTP-AUTH for relaying would be nice. There should be 500mb-1G storage, but be under $10/mo.

[ I usually reccomend Dreamhost, though they're not my current host. Everyone i know that's used them has had good things to say though. -k]

Reliable and cheap web/mail hosting