] Now, any Californian who shares files with more than 10
] people must add their e-mail address to the file. Those
] who break this law could be fined up to $2,500, spend a
] year in jail or both.

Anonymous speech on the Internet is now illegal in California. The MPAA is coming to your state next.

Wired News: California bans anonymous speech on the Internet

[ Anyone know if the debates are going to have live webcast coverage support? I have friends living overseas who, obviously, aren't gonna get CBS, etc. but want to watch. Anyway, thought i'd see if any of this crew had the 411. -k]

] John Kerry: "It was the right decision to disarm Saddam
] Hussein, and when the President made the decision I
] supported him."
]
] John Kerry: "I don't believe the President took us to war
] as he should have."
]
] John Kerry: "The winning of the war was brilliant."
]
] John Kerry: "It's the wrong war, in the wrong place, at
] the wrong time."
]
] John Kerry: "I have always said we may yet even find
] weapons of mass destruction."
]
] John Kerry: "I actually did vote for the 87 billion
] dollars before I voted against it."

[ Solid. Shows how distorted the claims are of Kerry's supposed inconsistency on Iraq. -k]

Context is everything...

] Voters-rights advocates are criticizing two recent
] decisions by Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell
] that they say will unfairly limit some people's ability
] to vote Nov. 2. Blackwell's office has told county boards
] of elections to follow strictly two provisions in Ohio
] election law:
]
]
] * One requires Ohio voter registration cards be
] printed on thick, 80-pound stock paper.
]
] * The other ordered boards to strictly interpret the
] rules regarding provisional ballots, the ones cast by
] voters who move before the election but are still
] registered in Ohio.
]
]
] The paper-stock issue is frustrating Montgomery County
] Board of Elections officials, who have a backlog of
] registrations to complete. If they get an Ohio voter
] registration card on paper thinner than required, they
] are mailing a new card out to the voter. But if they
] still have the backlog by the registration deadline, Oct.
] 4, voters will not have another chance to get their
] correct paperwork in, said Steve Harsman, deputy director
] of the Montgomery County board. In Montgomery County
] there is a backlog of around 4,000 registrations, Harsman
] said. A few hundred could be affected by this provision,
] he said.

[ I won't go so far as to say it's partisan or conspiratorial without knowing a lot more, but it is complete bullshit. Since when is the state's interest in having a particular weight of paper for a document (regardless of the motivation behind such a rule) greater than the right to vote? Gimme a break. -k]

MyDD :: Holy Fucking Jim Crow

] "This brave man came to our country to talk about how
] he's risking his life for a free Iraq, which helps
] America," Bush said at a campaign event in battleground
] Wisconsin. "And Senator Kerry held a press conference and
] questioned Mr. Allawi's credibility. You can't lead this
] country if your ally in Iraq feels like you question his
] credibility."

[ A.) No, he didn't come here for that. He came here to say the things you asked him to, regarding how awesome Iraq is, otherwise, he wouldn't have been invited. B.) Bullshit. Running america does not hinge on wether the Iraqi governor specifically thinks you like him or not. That's asinine. C.) If trying to make a general point about not being able to govern effectively while ignoring or marginalizing your allies, then, yes, good one Mr. Pres., but that's one of the main reasons we don't like you, as it turns out, so, please, meet kettle. D.) Kerry didn't even insult the guy... all he said is that Allawi's painting a picture that doesn't seem consistent with either his previous statements or the reality we're hearing from those news sources still trying to be honest. So, ok, he questioned the guy's credibility... but the guy was making shit up, so isn't that precisely the correct thing to do?

Yet again the Bush camp manages to frame things with negative sounding terminology to cover up the fact that their opponent is correct. Questioning the credibility of someone who is demonstrably not credible is categorically proper behavior. And then Cheney comes out and says Kerry showed a "complete lack of respect" for the guy on the basis of some very benign comments. It's fucking unreal. -k]

Yahoo! News - Bush: Kerry Wrongly Questions Allawi

] A British company claims to have found the "holy grail"
] of the nuclear energy industry - a solution to the
] problem of radioactive waste disposal.
]
] Amec, the London company that cleaned up Ground Zero in
] New York and rebuilt the Pentagon after the September 11
] attacks, says that its latest process will enable nuclear
] waste to be stored safely for 200,000 years - longer than
] the radioactivity will last.

[ It's basically a refinement of the vitrification process we've all seen before, but it appears to provide a much longer term solution for less money. This, and new, safer reactor designs (pebble beds) may really help us out of the peak oil bind, but I still think solar will end up being the best long term energy source. -k]

Telegraph | News | British firm finds the nuclear industry's 'holy grail'

] The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems
] of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are
] conducting elections that are internationally certified
] to be transparent, honest and fair.

Welcome to the Bush America. You'd think with the problems of 4 years ago that Florida would have used the intervening time to get their act together. I'm not going to blame them for not doing it right now, they've had 4 major hurricanes hammer them, but in the intevening period what they've done is abhorrent. They've kept things as they were so they can ensure that they steal an election this time that was a coin toss last time.

Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote (washingtonpost.com)

] We report a reversible liquid-solid transition upon
] heating of a simple solution composed of a-cyclodextrine
] (alpha-CD), water, and 4-methylpyridine. These solutions
] are homogeneous and transparent at ambient temperature
] and solidify when heated to temperatures between 45° and
] 75°. Quasielastic and elastic neutron scattering show
] that molecular motions are slowed down in the solid and
] that crystalline order is established. The solution
] "freezes on heating." This process is fully reversible,
] on cooling the solid melts. A rearrangement of hydrogen
] bonds is postulated to be responsible for the observed
] phenomenon.

...Dude.

[ seriously. that's crazy. -k]

A Liquid that Goes Solid when Heated

] Recent surveys raise questions about Bush's assertion
] that only "a handful" of people are actively involved in
] the insurgency.
]
]
] A report issued Friday by the Washington-based Center for
] Strategic and International Studies cited a poll showing
] a third of Iraqi Sunnis and 11 percent of Shiites support
] attacks on multinational forces.
]
]
] "Violence is going up and Iraqi support for the U.S.
] presence is going down," said James Dobbins, a former
] Bush administration special envoy to Afghanistan and
] now a military analyst for the RAND Corp.
] "If we can't protect the population, we can't secure its
] trust and support."

[ Bush lives in a fantasy world. Or, at least, he's trying to sell that fantasy world to the American public. -k]

Yahoo! News - Iraq Violence Eclipses Rosy Declarations

] Astronomers have found a cloud of frozen sugar near the
] centre of our galaxy, the Milky Way, it was revealed
] today.

[ The real question is, was it caramel or nougat? -k]

Sweet Discovery at Centre of Milky Way