Sunday, October 31, 2004
Are we making more terrorists?
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Are we making more terrorists? Beldar's Blog handles answering the argument better than I ever could.
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"Radical Islamic extremists are not like poison ivy — "don't scratch it, it'll only get worse!" The necessary premise of this argument is, "If we'd only — (choose one or more) — (a) let them alone, (b) treat them with due respect, (c) allow them to drive Israel into the sea, then they wouldn't keep flying airplanes into our buildings, blowing up school busses, kidnapping and beheading civilians, etc."
"These folks won't be happy until my two daughters are in burqas and they and I together are under the watchful eyes of thought-and-conduct police who'll correct any deviation from their approved path. They won't be happy until our civilization is destroyed and replaced with one that they've dictated."
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Before you vote, please go read the rest of his essay.
And that, ladies and gentleman, is the single most important reason I am voting for George W. Bush on Tuesday despite, to quote George F. Will's column today,
"...[George W. Bush's] passivity about spending (he has vetoed nothing), his enlargement of the welfare state (the prescription drug entitlement), his expansion of inappropriate federal responsibilities (concerning education grades K-12, through No Child Left Behind) and his complicity in vandalizing the Constitution (he signed the McCain-Feingold bill that rations political speech). "
[Via BeldarBlog]
More on the Dangers of eVoting
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More on the Dangers of eVoting:
Slashdot points to a scholarly article out of Yale which makes the case that "Small vote manipulations can swing elections" (registration required)
""This emphasizes the importance of a voter-verified audit trail as protection against this sort of pervasive, subtle manipulation. To guard against such an attack, the correspondence between each voter's intentions and the tally reported by the system must be made absolute by such means as the Mercuri method [8], where each voter personally verifies a machine-produced paper ballot that is then counted by machine in a reliable, repeatable manner, but can nonetheless still be counted manually.""
I'm sure there's be a chapter on this in John Fund's next edition of 'Stealing Elections' (Amazon)
[Via Slashdot]
Saturday, October 30, 2004
Election Litigation Watch 2004
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http://www.litigationwatch2004.com/ contains links to news coverage of lawsuits in the 2004 Elections.
Friday, October 29, 2004
Rendell Misstates The Issue
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Rendell is finally doing the right thing:
""Under pressure from military voters and Republicans, [Pennsylvanie] Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell said Friday that he will ask a federal judge to extend the deadline for counting overseas ballots by one week.
Rendell told a news conference in Philadelphia that Republicans could produce only one voter - out of 26,000 overseas military and civilian voters - who failed to get the absentee ballot he requested." [My Way News]"
The issue is not whether people got ballots, governor. The issue is the the fact that they got them late yet the deadline for their return was unaltered. It appears that will now be rectified.
Thursday, October 28, 2004
NEJM: Health Care Coverage and Drug Costs — The Candidates Speak Out
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The editors asked President George W. Bush and Senator John F. Kerry to respond to two questions regarding health care in the United States. Free full text.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
FactCheck.org: Media Fund Twists the Truth More Than Michael Moore
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Media Fund Twists the Truth More Than Michael Moore
Radio ad claims most air traffic was grounded when bin Laden's family was allowed to leave. Not true. In fact, the FBI questioned 22 of them and found no links to terrorism.
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"Summary
This anti-Bush radio ad is among the worst distortions we've seen in what has become a very ugly campaign. It states as fact some of the most sensational falsehoods that Michael Moore merely insinuated in his anti-Bush movie Farenheit 9/11 .
The ad was released Oct. 25 by The Media Fund, an independent Democratic group run by former Clinton deputy chief of staff Harold Ickes. It falsely claims that members of the bin Laden family were allowed to fly out of the US "when most other air traffic was grounded," though in fact commercial air traffic had resumed a week earlier.
The ad also falsely claims that the bin Laden family members were not "detained," when in fact 22 of them were questioned by the FBI before being allowed to leave -- and their plane was searched as well.
And by the way, the man who gave approval for the flight wasn't Bush or even any of his close aides, it was former White House anti-terrorism chief Richard Clarke, now one of Bush's strongest critics."
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Bob Woodward: Decision Iraq
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In Decision Iraq (washingtonpost.com), Bob Woodward has 22 questions for John Kerry about Iraq: Would Kerry Have Done Things Differently?
Though Woodward has tried, the Kerry campaign is refusing to grant an interview. 'Never explain, never apologize'.
I see a problem with getting his answers now, though: hindsight bias.
[Via TechCentral Station]
Is Kerry Proposing Government Health Care?
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Medpundit opines:
""Any plan that expands Medicaid to include over 50% of the population - which is what the Kerry plan does - is a plan that involves government take-over of the healthcare system. There's just no getting around it.UPDATE: People are asking, "where does Kerry say he's going to put over 50% of the population on Medicaid?" His healthcare plan calls for expanding Medicaid coverage to children families that make up to 300% of the federal poverty level. According to the 2004 Federal Poverty Guidelines, 300% of the federal poverty level for a family of four would be a yearly income of $56,500. And according to the U.S. Census Bureau, the median yearly income in 2003 for family households was $53,991. Assuming that the average family is a family of four, that means that over 50% of families would qualify for Medicaid. And believe me, employers won't foot the bill for healthcare insurance when they know their employees can get Medicaid. So a large segment of the population will be shifted to Medicaid, and that's a government healthcare program.""
Sunday, October 24, 2004
All about Kerry's health-care plan
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Nicole Griffin: Kerry, Healthcare, and Unmitigated Disaster
[Via The Shape of Days]
Why Are Oil Prices High When Supply Is Ample?
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Clayton Cramer: Why Are Oil Prices So High?
""....And from Adel al-Jubeir, Advisor to the Saudi Crown Prince September 28, 2004 at about 1:40 PM Pacific time, CNBC interview with Maria Bartaromo:
"We believe the price of oil should be between $22 and $28 per barrel. $25 is a good reasonable price. There is no extra demand accompanying today's very high price for oil. We are seeing no extra customers lined up and there is no shortage of supply. The high prices we are seeing are due to speculation in the oil markets."""
George Will On Voter Fraud
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George F. Will at TownHall.com: How Voter Fraud Threatens Our Democracy
Saturday, October 23, 2004
Deficit Decline
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Jack Kemp--Deficit declines $100 billion:
""Looking ahead to the next four years, our goal should be economic growth rather than reducing deficits per se. If growth is the goal, then tax increases, trade restrictions and nationalized health care are the wrong choices. If long-term growth is our goal, then we will reject tax-and-spend redistributionist policies masquerading as fiscal discipline; and, if long-term growth is our goal, we will continue to pursue lower tax rates on all Americans, free trade, less regulation, tort reform and entitlement reform. Those are the right choices. ""
(emphasis mine)
[Via Kudlow's Money Politic$]
Thursday, October 21, 2004
The John Edwards Fan Club
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" "Why, I asked, should we carry a $100,000 medical school debt, stay in school for 8 to 12 years, work long hours during and after residency, and fight the bloated bureaucracy of the health care system, when we can get rich quickly by following John Edwards? So here is what I proposed. We physicians should take turns suing one another..." "
[Via Point Of Law Forum]
NEJM -- Bankrolling Stem-Cell Research with California Dollars
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NEJM--Bankrolling Stem-Cell Research with California Dollarscontains a very informative passage about how stem cells are obtained:
""What is at issue here is that the derivation of an embryonic stem-cell line requires the dissection and culturing of about 30 cells from the core of a blastocyst, a microscopic early-stage embryo comprising fewer than 200 cells. The derivation process kills the embryo, even as the stem cells persist and propagate. The embryos themselves are obtained from in vitro fertilization (IVF) clinics, where excess embryos are typically produced in the course of assisted-fertility procedures. An estimated 400,000 IVF embryos are currently in frozen storage and will eventually be discarded, except for those that are donated, with informed consent, for use in research. Some religious conservatives and opponents of abortion have taken a firm stance on what seems to be tenuous, ultimately unsustainable moral, ethical, or logical ground: acquiescence to the discarding of excess IVF embryos, coupled with rigid opposition to the use of embryos for biomedical research.""
The same issue contains another article titled Embryonic Stem-Cell Research — The Case for Federal Funding. Both are available free (kudos to NEJM for this).
Have You No Shame Senators? - Judson Cox
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Have You No Shame Senators? - Judson Cox:
" "Sen. Kerry also sought to take advantage of Reeve's tragedy. According to Tribune National Correspondent, Jill Zuckman, Kerry claimed Reeve called him on the night of the second debate, and left a message thanking him for supporting stem cell research. The excitement in his voice was really just palpable. He was just thrilled at where the discussion of stem cell research had come to." Reeve had already fallen in to a coma at the time Kerry claims he called. Kerry's willingness to exploit people and situations knows no bounds." "
Tuesday, October 19, 2004
Must Read: Tommy Frank Sets Kerry Straight
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New York Times: War of Words
" "...But the gravest danger would result from the withdrawal of American troops before we finish our work. Today we are asking our servicemen and women to do more, in more places, than we have in decades. They deserve honest, consistent, no-spin leadership that respects them, their families and their sacrifices. The war against terrorism is the right war at the right time for the right reasons. And Iraq is one of the places that war must be fought and won. George W. Bush has his eye on that ball and Senator John Kerry does not." "
Tommy Franks Sets Kerry Straight. 'Honest, consistent, no-spin leadership.' I love it. Hey, anybody got Chris Matthew's phone number?
[Via Captain's Quarters]
Monday, October 18, 2004
How Technology Failed In Iraq
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MIT Technology Review: How Technology Failed In Iraq
" “Next to the fall of Baghdad,” says Marcone, “that bridge was the most important piece of terrain in the theater, and no one can tell me what’s defending it. Not how many troops, what units, what tanks, anything. There is zero information getting to me. Someone may have known above me, but the information didn’t get to me on the ground.” Marcone’s men were ambushed repeatedly on the approach to the bridge. But the scale of the intelligence deficit was clear after Marcone took the bridge on April 2." "
FactCheck.org: Kerry Falsely Claims Bush Plans To Cut Social Security Benefits
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Kerry Falsely Claims Bush Plans To Cut Social Security Benefits
" "It's not Bush's plan, and it wouldn't cut benefits.
Summary
A Kerry ad claims "Bush has a plan to cut Social Security benefits by 30 to 45 percent." That's false. Bush has proposed no such plan, and the proposal Kerry refers to would only slow down the growth of benefits, and only for future retirees. It was one of three possible "reform models" detailed by a bipartisan commission in 2001.
The ad also says nothing about what Kerry would do to address the troubled state of Social Security finances. Unless taxes are increased, the system's trustees say currently scheduled benefits would have to be cut 32%." "
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