Hell Yeah!

eBay Back To The Future DeLorean

] At issue was a passage in Woodward's "Plan of Attack," an
] account published this week of Bush's decision making
] about the war, quoting Rumsfeld as telling Prince Bandar
] bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador to Washington, in
] January 2003 that he could "take that to the bank" that
] the invasion would happen.

] Pentagon officials omitted the discussion of the meeting
] from a transcript of the Woodward interview that they
] posted on the Defense Department's Web site Monday.
] Rumsfeld told reporters at a briefing yesterday that he
] may have used the phrase "take that to the bank" but that
] no final decision had been made to go to war.

This is continues a scary trend the Bush Administration has done since it came into the Whitehouse: Trying to Change history. They have already modified their robots.txt to prevent indexing of Iraq related information on whitehouse.gov, and now they are released transcripts that aren't complete?

Sure we have the Washington Post to nail their ass, but will we always? As Clear Channel grows in power, ask yourself this: What would a politian be willing to do for a company that could literally change recorded history with its hold over all forms of media?

Pentagon Deleted Rumsfeld Comment (washingtonpost.com)

] Despite statements to the contrary, quiet preparations
] for the return of the draft have been under way for some
] time. The Selective Service System's Annual Performance
] Plan for Fiscal Year 2004 - despite a ton of
] obfuscatory jargon, acronyms, and bureaucrat-speak -
] can't quite manage to bury all of its bombshells.

] Strategic Objective 1.2 of the 2004 plan commits the
] Selective Service System to being fully operational
] within 75 days of "an authorized return to conscription."
] Strategic Objective 1.3 then commits them to "be
] operationally ready to furnish untrained manpower within
] DOD timelines."

...

] The 2004 plan commits the SSS to report to the president
] on March 31st, 2005, that the system is ready for
] activation with 75 days. If they manage the task, then
] the first lottery could happen as early as June 15th,
] 2005.

May I suggest, to those under 25 that know computers and/or languages, to get the hell out of the US by this time next year?

AlterNet: The Coming Draft

] WASHINGTON -- The government is taking the first steps
] toward a targeted military draft of Americans with
] special skills in computers and foreign languages.
]
] Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is adamant that he will
] not ask Congress to authorize a draft, and officials at
] the Selective Service System, the independent federal
] agency that would organize any conscription, stress that
] the possibility of a so-called "special skills draft" is
] remote.
]
] Nonetheless, the agency has begun the process of creating
] the procedures and policies to conduct such a targeted
] draft in case military officials ask Congress to
] authorize it and the lawmakers agree to such a request.
]
] "Talking to the manpower folks at the Department of
] Defense and others, what came up was that nobody foresees
] a need for a large conventional draft such as we had in
] Vietnam," said Richard Flahavan, a spokesman for the
] Selective Service System. "But they thought that if we
] have any kind of a draft, it will probably be a special
] skills draft."

Computers? No, I don't know anything about computers. And I only speak English. Really. I forgot everything I learned in college.

Agency initiates steps for selective draft

Flash animation. Parody of "Tom Saywer" by the band Rush, lampooning Limbuaghs drug addiction with actual hypocritical quotes from the man himself. Takea a while to load, but its worth it! -LB

Rush Limbaugh parody

] If you peel back the arguments in favor of offshoring,
] what you finally end up with is an article of faith --
] faith that history will repeat itself and the U.S.
] economy will quickly generate enough new jobs in
] higher-paying industries to compensate for the ones lost
] to trade. What I've yet to see, however, is even a
] educated guess as to what those jobs might be.

Realities Make 'Offshoring' Hard to Swallow (washingtonpost.com)

] Bush photomosaic of Americans who have died in Iraq since
] the war president entered office. Link

Disturbing.

Bush photomosaic of American dead in Iraq

"The days of dull, grey concrete could be about to end. A Hungarian architect has combined the world’s most popular building material with optical fiber from Schott to create a new type of concrete that transmits light."

It's like X-ray specs.....but not

] Watching television at a very early age could lead to
] concentration problems later in childhood, according to a
] new study led by Seattle researchers published today in
] the journal Pediatrics.
]
] For every hour of television viewed per day before age 3,
] children were 10 percent more likely to have trouble
] paying attention by age 7, researchers said. A child
] younger than 3, for example, who watched two hours of
] television a day was 20 percent more likely to have
] attention problems at age 7 than a child who never
] watched television.

And I'm only seeing the problem escalate with future generations. I know it wasn't the greatest flick, but a Johnny Mnemonic scenario comes to mind.

Television may drive kids to distraction

] ]
] ] "It's not entirely clear to me why they go out of their
] ] way to keep opposition candidates from fully
] ] participating in the electoral process," said Powell, who
] ] added that this does not mean there is yet cause to worry
] ] that democracy in Russia is crumbling.

Not clear? NOT CLEAR? NOT CLEAR!?!

Jesus... and to think, I sometimes entertain that Powell is sincere. Putin is a dictator. Putin's people are FSB (aka domestic KGB). He came to power by promising a hardline solution to the "Chechyna Problem" after terrorist attacks leveled several apartment buildings and killed hundreds of people in Russia. Terrorist attacks that were quite likely carried out by the FSB (I'm not talking wild conspiracy theory here, an FSB agent was arrested shortly before these attacks attempting to plant explosives in the basement of an apartment building) under the order of Putin.

Upon taking office, Putin began a large scale program of nationalizing privatized businesses, and appointing FSB higher ups to their boards. He has ended freedom of the press. He has renationalized every national TV station. He has waged a war in Chechnya in a manner that has killed most Chechyn males, and leveled every single city in the region. He has an official youth party who's doctrines compare to those of the Nazi youth.

He toppled Berezovsky. Xodorkovsky is in jail. Anyone that dares to oppose him and has the means to do so is destroyed.

And its "not clear" why he doesn't allow opponents to access media outlets? He's a strong man. The only way he's leaving office is in a box. Russia has chosen Dictatorship to Oligarchy. This election was rigged, just like the last one. And the one before that. Democracy in Russia has never existed, and probably never will.

Everyone that follows Russian politics knows this. Even Bush, when he "sees into his soul," as he looks into his pretty eyes.

RE: Putin's victory criticized by foes