] His last film, Kill Bill, bravely incorporated Japanese,
] Chinese and Spanish dialogue into a mainstream Hollywood
] movie, but Quentin Tarantino's next project promises to
] dispense with the English language altogether. It will be
] shot entirely in Mandarin, he claims, and it will be
] "another kung fu that's gonna blow your asses off".

[ Sweet. -k]

Tarantino plans old-style kung fu film - in Mandarin

] When he [Osama Bin Laden] said, 'Every
] state will be determining its own security, and will be
] responsible for its choice,' it means that any U.S. state
] that will choose to vote for the white thug Bush as
] president has chosen to fight us, and we will consider it
] our enemy, and any state that will vote against Bush has
] chosen to make peace with us, and we will not
] characterize it as an enemy. By this characterization,
] Sheikh Osama wants to drive a wedge in the American body,
] to weaken it, and he wants to divide the American people
] itself between enemies of Islam and the Muslims, and
] those who fight for us, so that he doesn't treat all
] American people as if they're the same. This letter will
] have great implications inside the American society, part
] of which are connected to the American elections, and
] part of which are connected to what will come after the
] elections."

I had already decided that I was voting for Bush. But now, I get frosting on the cake. By my vote, I can clearly do something that gives the finger to Osama? Well cool, that makes my decision even easier. :)

[ Call me crazy, but I'd rather that motherfucker was dead than to have the oportunitity to "give him the finger" now.

Not to mention, i completely disagree with this analysis. My reading of the transcript was, yes, that Osama dosen't like Bush, but then, a large portion of the world community doesn't like Bush either, and they're not terrorists (or are they!). However, I saw nothing that seemed to indicate specifically that Osama has a predilection for one candidate or the other. MEMRI's own translation says "Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al-Qa'ida. Your security is in your own hands, and any U.S. state that does not toy with our security automatically guarantees its own security." In other words, if you leave us alone, we'll leave you alone. Now, I don't buy that shit for a second, of course, and I certainly don't think either Bush or Kerry will take an official position of ignoring Osama, but nonetheless, i think it's a pretty clear statement that the likelihood of future attacks is based primarily on our foreign policy, not on which guy happens to be in the oval office.

Bush likes to bluster, and it clearly resonates well with a lot of people. "Yeah, fuck Osama, he can't tell me what to do! Up yours Osama." But that means nothing. This fucker is still running around, making tapes, and directing terrorism, and that's the best we got. On friday, in response to the tape, Bush said "Americans will not be intimidated or influenced by an enemy of our country." That sounds like tough talk until you realize it's completely retarded. We won't be influenced by our enemies? What have we been doing for the past 3 years then? Business as usual? Not precisely. All Bush had to do is stick to it and kill this asshole and he'd have been Gods own canditate, a shoo in for re-election, even if he had taken on Iraq afterwards, but Iraq was more important somehow, so Osama's still out there saying "Hey America, remember 9/11? That was me, y'all. And I'm gonna do it some more too."

Support for Bush can be achieved through certain avenues of logic, I'm sure, but success in the global war on terror just isn't one of them. -k]

MEMRI: Osama bin Laden Threatens U.S. States Not to Vote for Bush

[ A flyer that's being distributed in FL pushing the "Kerry == more terrorism" meme. -k]

Scare Tactics (pdf)

] Many people have asked who am I, what my qualifications
] are, and why am I doing this. People have speculated that
] I am a Clinton administration official, a bored retired
] statistician and more. Welcome to the Votemaster FAQ.
]
] Who are You?
]
]
] My name is Andrew Tanenbaum.

[ The brains behind electoral-vote.com turns out to be the author of MINIX and a number of books on Operating Systems, among other things. -k]

The Votemaster FAQ

] Still, relatively cheap energy costs in the United States
] mean most building owners remain unconcerned with
] efficiency, said Srinivas Katipamula, a research engineer
] at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Of the roughly
] 4.7 million commercial buildings in the United States,
] only 10 percent have energy management systems or time
] clocks that turn lights on or off based on the time of
] day, he said.

[ This is the key issue. Market forces are very good at curbing demand for scarce resources, but the more i read about the world energy infrastructure, the less confident i am that the market can respond in time. In a situation where availability of a resource drops sharply while demand continues to increase due to other factors, the market shocks will be severe. If we're gonna minimize the real cost (much of which is still in the future), it's time to start on this now. In fact, it was probably time to start decades ago. But it's ever so hard to get anyone to spend money on R&D without a short-term financial incentive. It doesn't appear that market forces operate well on long time scales. Efficiencies in existing products and processes will go a long way to reducing our demand for energy, saving money in the long run, not to mention the resulting environmental benefits. -k]

Smart buildings gain momentum

] Mr. Bond's argument - that housing built with public
] money should be used only for housing, not voter
] registration - makes no sense on its face. It is even
] more ridiculous given the universal support for voter
] registration on military bases around the world. Military
] voters tend to favor Republicans, and public housing
] residents tend to favor Democrats. It would be nice if
] everyone could agree that both groups should be
] encouraged to vote.

Editorial: G.O.P. to the Poor: Don't Vote

[ Granted this is a partisan source, but it's still a pretty telling sample of the kinds of bullshit going on across the country.

See in particular the flyer from alabama urging voters to get to those poles (sic) on the 4th. Life imitating art (cf The Onion) in the worst way possible. -k]

Daily Kos :: Voter fraud and disenfranchisement

] LWVGA is proud to partner with WSB-TV (Atlanta's
] Channel 2) and their Family2Family program to distribute
] this publication in the Metro Atlanta area.

[ Always a good resource. It's easy to forget that there are things going on besides the presidential election that are just as important. In fact, in GA and a lot of other states, more important, because your vote will make a serious difference in some of those tight local / state races. -k]

League of Women Voters of Georgia - Voter Guide

] Watch Nader debate action figures:

[ Wow. -k]

Ralph Nader, Unsafe at Any Size

] PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla.%u2014"I want you to stand, raise
] your right hands," and recite "the Bush Pledge," said
] Florida state Sen. Ken Pruitt. The assembled mass of
] about 2,000 in this Treasure Coast town about an hour
] north of West Palm Beach dutifully rose, arms aloft, and
] repeated after Pruitt: "I care about freedom and liberty.
] I care about my family. I care about my country. Because
] I care, I promise to work hard to re-elect, re-elect
] George W. Bush as president of the United States."
]
]
] I know the Bush-Cheney campaign occasionally requires the
] people who attend its events to sign loyalty oaths, but
] this was the first time I have ever seen an audience
] actually stand and utter one. Maybe they've replaced the
] written oath with a verbal one.

[ Sig He^h^h^h^h^h. Er, I mean, Yay, Bush! -k]

One Nation Under Bush - At a campaign rally, Republicans recite the