The point of terrorism is to cause terror, sometimes to further a political goal and sometimes out of sheer hatred. The people terrorists kill are not the targets; they are collateral damage. And blowing up planes, trains, markets or buses is not the goal; those are just tactics.

The real targets of terrorism are the rest of us: the billions of us who are not killed but are terrorized because of the killing. The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act.

And we're doing exactly what the terrorists want.

Refuse to be Terrorized - Wired News

Mr. Nassirian said people at the Education Department had described the omission as “a clerical mistake.” But it is “odd,” he said, because applying the subject codes “is a fairly mechanical task. It is not supposed to be the subject of any kind of deliberation.”

“I am not at all certain that the omission of this particular major is unintentional,” he added. “But I have to take them at their word.”

Scientists who knew about the omission also said they found the clerical explanation unconvincing, given the furor over challenges by the religious right to the teaching of evolution in public schools. “It’s just awfully coincidental,” said Steven W. Rissing, an evolutionary biologist at Ohio State University.

Deleting something from a document in Word is an accident, but very easy to correct. If you look at the PDF, 26.1303 is simply gone. That's not an "accident."

Evolution Major Vanishes From Approved Federal List - New York Times

During his half-hour speech before the Tulsa Metro Chamber at the Doubletree Hotel at Warren Place, Inhofe called the United Nations an "absolute disaster" whose peacekeepers in Africa have been "going around teaching girls to be prostitutes."

ummmm... huh? Wow. If that's true, I wonder how those internationally trained prostitutes stack up against Jim's homegrown Oklahoma City hookers. I'm betting the ones with UN training are better at just about everything except sucking chrome off trailer hitches. They don't have chrome trailer hitches in Africa after all...

Shnook.

UN Training Hookers!

That's the point, Jamiel Terry said. If a candidate is going to talk about strong families - he ought to talk about why his own family isn't, he said.

"Both Tila and I have tried to revive or rekindle our relationship with my father and we've been shut out," Jamiel Terry said. "So maybe if we had been invited for Christmas, Thanksgiving, birthdays, etc., we would be in a family photo."

Yep, family values. Disown your family.

In Senate race, family values campaign tested by real life

An editor at The Hill has verified that it was indeed Jonathan Kaplan on the second segment of the call, who said, “Screw that and Screw him.”

“Thank you for sending the files. There’s no doubt it was Kaplan.”

The interchange was a clear example of the real bias of some in the media, who allow themselves to be played by the GOP. Mike Conallen, the GOP CoS who hacked into the call had revealed that day that “a reporter” gave him the dial in information.

There's a nice line in audio that basically confirms this as a deliberate move, Kaplan saying "Mike? You gonna help me out here?" This guy's next job will probably be at Fox because there's no question about what he did here.

The Democratic Daily » Blog Archive » John Kerry has Showdown with Reporter, Hits Raw Nerve that Reporter Reveals to Bloggers After Conference Call

At the meeting, Mr. Bensman, a coordinator with Heartwood, an environmental organization, suggested the corps simply destroy the dam. It was an idea the corps itself had considered. In fact, a photograph of an exploding dam was included in the corps’ PowerPoint presentation, explosive demolition being by far the most common method of dam removal.

Mr. Bensman said he had long criticized the system of locks and dams as environmentally damaging and an unfair government subsidy benefiting boat traffic over railroads. “I’ve been fighting these things for decades,” he said.

But news accounts of the hearing did not put it quite like that. One newspaper said simply that he “would like to see the dam blown up.”

On July 31, he said, he got a telephone call from someone who identified himself as Matt Federhofer, an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. There is such a person at the agency’s office in Fairview Heights, Ill., a St. Louis suburb, but he did not respond to a voice mail message yesterday.

So let me see if I have this right. Guy goes to a meeting where they are talking about building a fish channel vs removing the dam, think removing the dam is a better idea than building the channel, and now has the FBI sticking a microscope up his ass. Yep, that's the "War on Terror" at work.

A Man, a Plan, a Dam. Then, an F.B.I. Call. - New York Times

"We fought for nothing. We cleared houses that will be reoccupied in no time,"

Any more questions about who won?

Israeli Troops Criticize War Handling, Soldiers Complain Of Short Supplies, Poor Communication, Lack Of Training - CBS News

U.S. Sen. Mel Martinez, Lt. Gov. Toni Jennings, three congressmen and four state legislators were expected to stand side by side with Harris at the “Orlando Fly-In Rally” set up the day before by the Harris campaign.

None of them showed up.

Oops. The Harris campaign mess continues.

Mel Martinez, Toni Jennings no shows at Harris rally

But allies of the administration called the decision legally questionable and politically motivated.

“It is an appallingly bad opinion, bad from both a philosophical and technical perspective, manifesting strong bias,” said David B. Rivkin, an official in the administrations of President Ronald Reagan and the first President Bush. “It is guaranteed to be overturned.”

Oh really? How about going beyond the sound byte and explaining WHY. Having read the opinion, it seems to have a sound basis in both precedent and interpretation. What makes this guy think it will be tossed other than King George and the Attorney Jester disagree?

Mr. Gonzales would not say whether the program played any role in foiling a plot last week to set off bombs in airliners bound for the United States from Britain. But Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois, suggested that it did play a role in the investigation.

In a written statement criticizing Judge Taylor’s ruling, Mr. Hastert defended the wiretapping operation and said that “our terrorist surveillance programs are critical to fighting the war on terror and saved the day by foiling the London terror plot.”

From everything that has since come out about the "London plot" the Brits are having a hard time even charging those guys with anything, much less making it stick. It seems we pressured them to make a move and now they've got bupkis, and what did any of that have to do the wiretaps other than Denny Hastert, who isn't on ANY of the committees that are required to be briefed about them, saying it did, but not giving any information about it?

I would ask them to give this side of their face a rest and start lying out the other side, but that side has been busy lying too.

Bush Vows to Overturn Wiretapping Ruling - New York Times

President Bush acknowledged Friday that it could take time for the people of Lebanon and the world to view the war between Israel and Hezbollah as a loss for the militant group.

"The first reaction of course of Hezbollah and its supporters is to declare victory. I guess I would have done the same thing if I were them," Bush said after a meeting with his economic advisers.

How about they declared victory because they won. Does Hezbollah still exist? Yes. In force? Yes, maybe even more than before. With arms? Lots. With leadership? I haven't seen any reports that any senior leaders were killed. As a political force? Big time yes. Lebanon has united behind them for standing up to Israel.

In Crawford, at Camp David or at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, one constant is this administration with it's cranium firmly ensconced in its alimentary canal.

USATODAY.com - Bush: Hezbollah loss helps stability