Category: 2004 US Election

Roaches hate the light . . . .

Joshuah Bearman: How They Do, Part III:

The trick with Republican staffers running dirty tricks, we discovered, is to turn cameras on them. They wilt like shrinking violets. Stephen Elliott and I are out here with a documentary crew, and when the film started rolling, the GOP’s bogus Gay Pride parade came to a quick end.

“Don’t film me,” the ringleader said when we stuck to them. “I’m expressing my freedom of speech.”

“And we’re going to film that expression,” Steve said. “What’s wrong with that? Gay pride, right? Unless your boss down at GOP headquarters doesn’t want you to turn up on TV.”

“I’m asking you nicely not to take pictures of me,” the ringleader said. Steve was emboldened, and pressed further. “You can ask me not nicely,” I said. “You’re creating news by posing as a Democrat and we’re capturing that. We’re not going anywhere.”

It’s not in Steve’s nature to throw down the gauntlet, but he smelled weakness, and called their bluff. By that time, the other guy in their operation had retreated to the far side of the parking lot, where his John-Kerry-and-his-gay-friends-want-to-adopt-your-children-bullshit sign wasn’t just a yellow speck in the distance. It looked like he’d lost his nerve.

These creatures need to be exposed for what they are: bring your camera if you’re going to polling place where there is a potential for voter intimidation or outright fraud.
Continue reading “bring a camera to the polls”

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: October 31, 2004 – November 06, 2004 Archives:

[A]cross the country, the Republican ground game is simple: prevent as many newly registered voters from voting as possible. It’s really as simple as that.

When you consider the two major parties, there are a lot of philosophical differences, a fair amount of spin, and it can be tough to work out which side really has one’s interests at heart. One simple question to ask: which party wants the voting franchise expanded to include more voters, more participation, and which would prefer to limit it? Say what you like about taxes or defense spending or any component of policy and process: we need an inclusive democracy before we can even consider these issues.

Now playing:Devil Song by Camper Van Beethoven from the album “Our Beloved Revolutionary Sweetheart” | Buy it

So, with a little help from PDP-XI, I managed to grab 5 out of 6 episodes of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy: Tertiary Phase, broadcast and streamed over BBC Radio 4. One of the files wasn’t usable so I managed to track it down with AcquisitionX. Listened to it all last night and, barring some weird mismatches in volume levels, it was a lot of fun.

Then I discovered a link to the 1939 production of The War of the Worlds, the infamous Orson Welles/Mercury Theatre[1] version.

I listened to some of it this afternoon (lots of similarly good stuff here ) and it was amazing to listen to; I understand how people tuning in might have feared a real invasion was underway.

I have always liked radio shows, though they were out of fashion when I was growing up: my father turned me onto The Goon Show, a late 50s BBC romp that still sets some kind of standard for audio-only fun.

Listening to the new HHGG series reminded me of how well a story can be told with words and voices (and the odd sound effect) and how important the story and the acting is.

There are a few more old broadcasts (the Mercury Theatre’s version of The 39 Steps, the canonical thriller, is queued up for a listen): try it for yourself and see how works for you.

[*]
Continue reading “I like radio because the pictures are better[*]”

One of the blind spots I find when I read about climate change or habitat destruction seems rooted in the belief that no matter what happens, mankind will survive, as if the world were created for man and will cease to exist without us. This would stem from the faith-based world-view that has gained so much currency lately.

What has seemed obvious to me and seems to be borne out by more and more news articles is the fact that life on earth preceded us and will follow us. We have condemned countless species to extinction, both large and small, but we seem likely to do consign ourselves to the same fate.

NEWS.com.au | Giant squid ‘taking over world’ (archived):

GIANT squid are taking over the world, well at least the oceans, and they are getting bigger.

According to scientists, squid have overtaken humans in terms of total bio-mass.

That means they take up more space on the planet than us.

The reason has been put down to overfishing of other species and climate change.

The squid, even with lifespans of 200 days, make up more of the living biomass on the earth than we do with our 28,000 day lifespans. And their increased viability is directly attributed to human activity, ie predator reduction through overfishing and increased water temperature through climate change.

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Dramatic warming confirmed in Arctic:

The report’s authors believe Arctic temperature ranges will increase several degrees in coming decades, according to a summary prepared by Gunn-Britt Retter, a technical adviser with the council’s Indigenous People’s Secretariat. Winters are expected to become warmer, and wet periods in the Arctic are expected to become longer, more frequent or both.

If nations want to temper or reverse that trend, Corell said, they will need to act quickly because carbon dioxide, the gas that is the prime culprit in global warming, typically lingers in the atmosphere 100 years before being recycled.
[ . . . ]
It is not entirely clear why the Arctic is warming much more quickly than other areas. One factor probably is albedo, or the heat-reflecting value of ice. Once icepacks melt and that reflective power is lost, temperature increases can accelerate.

This last bit is important: this is where the increase can become self-sustaining and possibly unrecoverable. If enough of the icepack melts and exposes darker, more absorptive surfaces, allowing more heat to be retained and melting more ice, exposing more absorptive material, it may not be within our power to rectify it.

Theory or fact? We don’t know yet. But there are a few theories that we rely on every day: electricity — the harnessing of electrons through copper wire — is “a theoretical construct, involving electrons, which are tiny units of charged mass that no one has ever seen.” Can we afford to pick and choose what theories we base decisions on, based on how they fit into a belief system, rather than basing our beliefs on observable phenomena?

The Face of American Fascism:

Lisa Dupler, a 33-year-old from Columbus, held up a rainbow-striped John Kerry sign outside the Nationwide Arena on Friday, as Republicans streamed out after being rallied by George W. Bush and Arnold Schwarzenegger. A thickset woman with very short, dark hair, Dupler was silent and barely flinched as people passing her hissed “faggot” into her ear. An old lady looked at her and said, “You people are sick!” A kid who looked to be about 10 or 11 affected a limp wrist and mincing voice and said, “Oh, I’m gay.” Rather than restraining him, his squat mother guffawed and then turned to Dupler and sneered, “Why don’t you go marry your girlfriend?” Encouraged, her son yelled, “We don’t want faggots in the White House!

The throngs of Republicans were pumped after seeing the president and the action hero. But there was an angry edge to their elation. They shrieked at the dozen or so protesters standing on the concrete plaza outside the auditorium. “Kerry’s a terrorist! yelled a stocky kid in baggy jeans and braces. “Communists for Kerry! Go back to Russia,” someone else screamed. Many of the took up the chant “Kerry sucks”; old women and teenage boy shouting with equal ferocity

With four days to go until the election, you can feel th temperature rising in Ohio

Salon
Down with the Kerry haters
October 30, 2004

Hatred, Hitler had recognized, was among the most powerful of emotions. That was what he consciously appealed to. That it what drove so many of his followers. But there was idealism, too — misplaced, certainly, but idealism none the less: hopes of a new society, of a ‘national community’ that would transcend all existing social divides . . . Those who did not belong to in the ‘national community’ — ‘shirkers’, ‘spongers’, ‘parasites’, and, of course, those deemed not to be German at all, notably Jews – would be ruthlessly suppressed

Ian Kershaw
Hitler
1998

Love is stronger than hate but hate is closer at hand: we find it easier to hate, to objectify/demonize. If you’re not one of Us, you’re one of Them and may God help you.

A Final Appeal from George Soros: Why We Must Not Re-elect President Bush:

A confirmed member of the reality-based community. I’d say, “just read it” but I think we’re preaching to the choir . . .

[pdf]
[Word document]
[en español]

stevenberlinjohnson.com: In Which I Boldly Predict An Election Result That No One Will Ever Hold Me Accountable For:

Oh, wait, I forgot #7. With this post, yours truly officially endorses Kerry. If there were ever a tipping point…

Steven Johnson predicts a Kerry win: you can go to his site to evaluate his reasoning. I hope he’s right, but the fact Bush is even in office makes me wonder if we can count on anything.

I wonder if the Sox and their winning ways of late will help at all?

DEAD LETTER OFFICE: GeorgeWBush.org: Bush/Cheney in 2004!:

OCTOBER, 2004: Recently, we at GeorgeWBush.org happened to notice that our mail server had a default “catch-all” mailbox, which for the past several months had been quietly gathering any and all e-mails addressed to [INSERT-ANYTHING-HERE]@georgewbush.org. We felt the need to share.

So the dimbulbs on the BC04 re-election campaign have been sending email to their colleagues at georgewbush.org, rather than .com: the folks at .org have it all for you, with attachments.

Those internets are tricky stuff . . . as the old adage goes, don’t send an email you wouldn’t want to see on the front page of the NYTimes. Some of the carping makes these folks like almost like Democrats.

Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: October 24, 2004 – October 30, 2004 Archives:

This has been rumored in Washington for several days. And now the Nelson Report has broken the story.

Some 350 tons of high explosives (RDX and HDX [sic: actually it’s HMX, about which more below]), which were under IAEA seal while Saddam was in power, were looted during the early days of the US occupation. Like so much else, it was just left unguarded.

HMX and RDX – plastic industrial and nuclear HMX and RDX explosives and bombs:

Powerful explosive forces such as these are effective in penetrating steel and concrete. Add to this the plasticity of RDX and HMX (within proper limits, they can be heated without exploding and cast into a variety of shapes), and one comprehends their potential uses. Military dynamite is 75% RDX, 15% TNT, and 10% plasticizers and desensitizers. The plastic explosive Composition C4 (known simply as C4, and the stock-in-trade of terrorists) is 91% RDX and 9% plasticizer. Exploding HMX provides the detonation waves that compress an atom bomb’s uranium-235, thereby initiating the vast energies of nuclear fission. (Iraq has imported hundreds of tons of HMX.)

An inescapable truth is that military preparedness always requires newer and better explosives. In 1987, Arnold Nielson working at the US Naval Air Warfare Center Weapons Division at China Lake synthesized hexanitrohexaazaisowurtzitane (designated as CL-20). Like HMX and RDX, CL-20 is a cyclic nitramine stable to handling and amenable to casting into shaped charges, but is up to 20% more powerful than HMX. In a test using shaped charges (30 grams each) of CL-20 and PBXN-5 (the explosive used in armor-piercing 30mm ammunition fired by the M230 chain gun on the AH-64 Apache helicopter), the CL-20 was able to penetrate seven one-inch steel plates compared to PBXN-5’s five plate penetration.

Great. So what little WMD-quality material Saddam had, secured under lock and key, has been missing since last year and the Bush administration has known about it all the time. This is the same materiél being used against American troops (what do you suppose is in those IEDs?). I don’t feel safer. Do you?

The NYTimes has the details here.

And at 454 grams to the pound ( (454 / 30) * 750 000 = 11 350 000), that makes for roughly 11.3 million charges of the type described, suitable for penetrating 7 inches of armor. Unarmored HUMVEEs would not stand a chance.
Continue reading “what would you do with 350 tons of something more powerful than TNT?”