] Newly obtained military records of one of Sen. John F.
] Kerry's most vocal critics, who has accused the
] Democratic presidential candidate of lying about his
] wartime record to win medals, contradict his own version
] of events.
]
]...
]
] But Thurlow's military records, portions of which were
] released yesterday to The Washington Post under the
] Freedom of Information Act, contain several references to
] "enemy small arms and automatic weapons fire" directed at
] "all units" of the five-boat flotilla. Thurlow won his
] own Bronze Star that day, and the citation praises him
] for providing assistance to a damaged Swift boat "despite
] enemy bullets flying about him."

[ Hmm. I guess he got his award under false pretenses too then? Who can even tell anymore... this whole thing seems really out of hand to me. -k]

Records Counter a Critic of Kerry (washingtonpost.com)

] Fierce fighting erupted in the city of Najaf Thursday
] after a rebel Shi'ite cleric defied an Iraqi government
] threat to attack his stronghold in a holy shrine and
] rejected demands that he end his uprising.
]
] Thick black smoke poured into the sky from near the Imam
] Ali Mosque, soon after Moqtada al-Sadr spurned the
] ultimatum from interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi. U.S.
] aircraft and tanks pounded the area around the shrine.

[ Didn't I just recommend a story that said he was ready to give up and be cool? Looks like there's gonna be some serious shit going down. -k]

Top News Article | Reuters.com

] Upcoming.org is a collaborative event calendar,
] completely driven by people like you. Enter in the events
] you're attending, comment on events entered by others,
] and syndicate event listings to your own weblog.
]
] As Upcoming.org learns more about the events you enjoy,
] it will suggest new events you never would have heard
] about.

[ Sounds like a very cool project... -k]

Upcoming.org: Home

] We've invited about 150 Friends Of O'Reilly, people
] who're doing interesting work in fields such as web
] services, data visualization and search, open source
] programming, computer security, hardware hacking, GPS,
] and all manner of emerging technologies to share their
] work-in-progess, show off the latest tech toys and
] hardware hacks, and tackle challenging problems together.
] We'll have some planned activities, but much of the
] agenda will be determined by you. We'll provide space,
] electricity, a wireless network, and a wiki. You bring
] your ideas, enthusiasms, and projects. We all get to know
] each other better, and hopefully come up with some cool
] ideas about how to change the world.

After all the press Stripe Snoop got from the Slashdot exposure, I got an email from Time O'Reilly inviting me to this. [does happy dance].

I'm hitting the book to broaden my knowledge, because amongst all these well known people, I feel like the smallest fish in the pond.

[ Damn dude. Congratulations! There are some serious heavyweights on this list. I've never felt so pathetic in comparison to a friend. ;) -k]

Acidus @ Foo Camp

] A sensor discerns and categorizes dog barks, translating
] them through 7 modes into words and pictograms that
] humans can understand. See what your pooch is saying, and
] gain a deeper level of understanding.

[ Japanese phones are *SICK*, man. We americans are all "Woo! Text messaging!" while these motherfuckers have a fucking universal translator for DOGS! Not to mention cool barcode readers, TV output and crazy data services. I shit you not, NTT DoCoMo's gonna market the first computer/brain interface and 15 year old girls all over japan will be talking to each other like fucking telepaths over high bandwidth wireless links. Americans will finally get decent wireless data services around the same time. -k

edit : actually, i don't know how fast they are, but Vodaphone's data rates are like 1.5 cents per K (0.2 Y/128B), which is pretty bullshit. Maybe that's just Vodaphone or maybe the actual data services aren't as good as I think. Still, the initial statement, that their phones are ill, stands. ]

Vodafone

] Reviewing Clinton's My Life in the June 24, 2004,
] Los Angeles Times, neoconservative Max Boot happily
] concluded that "conservatives like character,
] liberals like cleverness." He's right. But to
] state what should be obvious, the president is not your
] father, your husband, your drinking buddy, or your
] minister. These are important roles, but they are not the
] president's. He has a job to do, and it's a
] difficult one, involving a wide array of complicated
] issues. His responsibility to manage these issues is a
] public one, and the capacity to do so in a competent and
] moral manner is fundamentally unrelated to the private
] virtues of family, friendship, fidelity, charity,
] compassion, and all the rest.

[ Indeed, Yglesias is overstating things a bit here, in my opinion. I don't think they're fundamentally unrelated insofar as truly having personal virtues will guide your hand when acting publicly. But the basic point, that intellect, the ability to grasp vast and complicated issues and the understanding of nuance and detail are more important than thinking someone's a "good guy", is sound. -k]

American Prospect Online - ViewWeb

] Liberals in the United States have been losing political
] debates to conservatives for a quarter century. In order
] to start winning again, liberals must answer two simple
] questions: what is conservatism, and what is wrong with
] it? As it happens, the answers to these questions are
] also simple:

[ Worth a read. The author diminishes his argument somewhat by resorting to cheapshot attacks and individual instances of unfounded statements. On the whole though, there's a lot of good stuff in here, so I'm memeing it despite the parts that piss me off. -k]

What Is Conservatism and What Is Wrong with It?

] The GW04 site has handy templates for letters to the
] editor. See the top one on the list:
]
] "New job figures and other recent economic data show that
] America's economy is strong and getting stronger - and
] that the President's jobs and growth plan is working. The
] Labor Department announced that employers added 288,000
] new jobs in April. In total, over 1.1 million jobs have
] been added since August, with 8 consecutive months of
] gains."
]
] Now google that entire phrase, and see the results. About
] 60 newspapers have run that letter...

[ Aahhh, astroturf. Does JK have one of these magic letter makers? Is turfing just a standard practice these days? Seems like every new day gives me a new reason not to bother with local media. Fuckers. -k]

Astroturfing the BC'04 way

A cool concept, but a little thin on the details. Regardless of whether your are pulling necessities out of a uhaul or or from a fedex box at the campus post office, move-in is teh suck.

[ Not a bad idea. It appears the DormRoomExpress stuff is the same brands you get from Target... so from that standpoint it's not unlike what you'll get anyway. It's not for me. I'd rather be able to choose how to allot even a minimal amount of funding, but I'm picky about things like pillows and lamps. But I imagine for some it would be pretty rad. ...]

If colleges were smart, they would bundle this stuff themselves. ... Colleges can buy in bulk that so that the price, even with the added cost of having it in the the room already, would be competitve with your local Target or Walmart.

[... Agreed, the college could do it and make it easy as hell, but i don't believe for a second that it'd actually be cheaper. -k]

Setting Up the Dorm Remotely

] Yesterday, the Martin Frost (D) campaign chided the Peter
] Sessions (R) campaign for stealing Frost lawn signs. The
] two congressmen are facing each other in a newly
] configured district courtesy of DeLay and his mad power
] grab in Texas.
]
] Sessions was outraged at such baseless accusations! And
] demanded proof of these scurilous charges. Today, the
] Frost campaign responded (in a press release)
]
] ...
]
] The proof?
]
] A police report circa Sessions' 2002 campaign, in which a
] sitting congressman was pulled over for stealing his
] opponents lawn signs.

[ And yes, Sessions is SUSP1 in the police report, and yes, you can see the police report, linked off this memed page.

You can't make up shit this funny. Did he forget about that time two years ago when he was stopped for the exact same shenanigans?

Just, wow, really. -k]

Daily Kos || TX-32: GOP Congressman steals lawn signs