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Remarks by Al Gore
May 26, 2004
As Prepared

George W. Bush promised us a foreign policy with humility. Instead, he has brought us humiliation in the eyes of the world.

He promised to "restore honor and integrity to the White House." Instead, he has brought deep dishonor to our country and built a durable reputation as the most dishonest President since Richard Nixon.

Honor? He decided not to honor the Geneva Convention. Just as he would not honor the United Nations, international treaties, the opinions of our allies, the role of Congress and the courts, or what Jefferson described as "a decent respect for the opinion of mankind." He did not honor the advice, experience and judgment of our military leaders in designing his invasion of Iraq. And now he will not honor our fallen dead by attending any funerals or even by permitting photos of their flag-draped coffins.

How did we get from September 12th , 2001, when a leading French newspaper ran a giant headline with the words "We Are All Americans Now" and when we had the good will and empathy of all the world -- to the horror that we all felt in witnessing the pictures of torture in Abu Ghraib.

To begin with, from its earliest days in power, this administration sought to radically destroy the foreign policy consensus that had guided America since the end of World War II. The long successful strategy of containment was abandoned in favor of the new strategy of "preemption." And what they meant by preemption was not the inherent right of any nation to act preemptively against an imminent threat to its national security, but rather an exotic new approach that asserted a unique and unilateral U.S. right to ignore international law wherever it wished to do so and take military action against any nation, even in circumstances where there was no imminent threat. All that is required, in the view of Bush's team is the mere assertion of a possible, future threat - and the assertion need be made by only one person, the President.

More disturbing still was their frequent use of the word "dominance" to describe their strategic goal, because an American policy of dominance is as repugnant to the rest of the world as the ugly dominance of the helpless, naked Iraqi prisoners has been to the American people. Dominance is as dominance does.

Dominance is not really a strategic policy or political philosophy at all. It is a seductive illusion that tempts the powerful to satiate their hunger for more power still by striking a Faustian bargain. And as always happens - sooner or later - to those who shake hands with the devil, they find out too late that what they have given up in the bargain is their soul.

One of the clearest indications of the impending loss of intimacy with one's soul is the failure to recognize the existence of a soul in those over whom power is exercised, especially if the helpless come to be treated as animals, and degraded. We also know - and not just from De Sade and Freud - the psychological proximity between sexual depravity and other people's pain. It has been especially shocking and awful to see these paired evils perpetrated so crudely and cruelly in the name of America....

Testing Hello from Blogger 

Censorship in arts 'healthy,' Pat Boone says - The Washington Times: Nation/Politics - April 21, 2004

Well of course, if you got your start bowdlerizing black artists songs for the general white bread consumption, you'd say censorship was a good thing too.

OSRM Declares Linux Free of Copyright Violations

Another +5 comment. My brilliance is surpassed only by my BS.

Headline news from Sky News - Witness the event

So David Beckham likes to have sex... Good for him.

Yahoo! News - U.S. Faces Tough Urban Battle in Fallujah

I'm going to become Christian on the off chance that George W. Bush is the anti-christ.

Pentagon delays U.S. troops' trip home No word yet on which units will stay longer in Iraq

How is this not "Bush's Vietnam"?

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column

Cringley and the ADM theory for M$. ADM is a giant food manufacturing company that every so often is hit with a couple of million dollar fine for non-compliance with pollution emission standards. Of course they save many more millions by not complying with those standards than they are ever fined, so why comply? Microsoft runs its DOJ antitrust compliance the same way. Why worry about a 1 billion fine if you can make 5 billion not complying and just pay the fine?

News
Copied without permission from independent.co.uk. But this is too important to edit.

'I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with aeroplanes'
Whistleblower the White House wants to silence speaks to The Independent
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
02 April 2004


A former translator for the FBI with top-secret security clearance says she has provided information to the panel investigating the 11 September attacks which proves senior officials knew of al-Qa'ida's plans to attack the US with aircraft months before the strikes happened.

She said the claim by the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, that there was no such information was "an outrageous lie".

Sibel Edmonds said she spent more than three hours in a closed session with the commission's investigators providing information that was circulating within the FBI in the spring and summer of 2001 suggesting that an attack using aircraft was just months away and the terrorists were in place. The Bush administration, meanwhile, has sought to silence her and has obtained a gagging order from a court by citing the rarely used "state secrets privilege".

She told The Independent yesterday: "I gave [the commission] details of specific investigation files, the specific dates, specific target information, specific managers in charge of the investigation. I gave them everything so that they could go back and follow up. This is not hearsay. These are things that are documented. These things can be established very easily."

She added: "There was general information about the time-frame, about methods to be used ­ but not specifically about how they would be used ­ and about people being in place and who was ordering these sorts of terror attacks. There were other cities that were mentioned. Major cities ­ with skyscrapers."

The accusations from Mrs Edmonds, 33, a Turkish-American who speaks Azerbaijani, Farsi, Turkish and English, will reignite the controversy over whether the administration ignored warnings about al-Qa'ida. That controversy was sparked most recently by Richard Clarke, a former counter-terrorism official, who has accused the administration of ignoring his warnings.

The issue ­ what the administration knew and when ­ is central to the investigation by the 9/11 Commission, which has been hearing testimony in public and private from government officials, intelligence officials and secret sources. Earlier this week, the White House made a U-turn when it said that Ms Rice would appear in public before the commission to answer questions. Mr Bush and his deputy, Dick Cheney, will also be questioned in a closed-door session.

Mrs Edmonds, 33, says she gave her evidence to the commission in a specially constructed "secure" room at its offices in Washington on 11 February. She was hired as a translator for the FBI's Washington field office on 13 September 2001, just two days after the al-Qa'ida attacks. Her job was to translate documents and recordings from FBI wire-taps.

She said said it was clear there was sufficient information during the spring and summer of 2001 to indicate terrorists were planning an attack. "Most of what I told the commission ­ 90 per cent of it ­ related to the investigations that I was involved in or just from working in the department. Two hundred translators side by side, you get to see and hear a lot of other things as well."

"President Bush said they had no specific information about 11 September and that is accurate but only because he said 11 September," she said. There was, however, general information about the use of airplanes and that an attack was just months away.

To try to refute Mr Clarke's accusations, Ms Rice said the administration did take steps to counter al-Qa'ida. But in an opinion piece in The Washington Post on 22 March, Ms Rice wrote: "Despite what some have suggested, we received no intelligence that terrorists were preparing to attack the homeland using airplanes as missiles, though some analysts speculated that terrorists might hijack planes to try and free US-held terrorists."

Mrs Edmonds said that by using the word "we", Ms Rice told an "outrageous lie". She said: "Rice says 'we' not 'I'. That would include all people from the FBI, the CIA and DIA [Defence Intelligence Agency]. I am saying that is impossible."

It is impossible at this stage to verify Mrs Edmonds' claims. However, some senior US senators testified to her credibility in 2002 when she went public with separate allegations relating to alleged incompetence and corruption within the FBI's translation department.

Reporter Apologizes for Iraq Coverage

While the major media, from The New York Times on down, has largely remained silent about their own failings in this area, a young columnist for a small paper in Fredericksburg, Va., has stepped forward.

"The media are finished with their big blowouts on the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, and there is one thing they forgot to say: We're sorry," Rick Mercier wrote, in a column published Sunday in The Free Lance-Star.

"Sorry we let unsubstantiated claims drive our coverage. Sorry we were dismissive of experts who disputed White House charges against Iraq. Sorry we let a band of self-serving Iraqi defectors make fools of us. Sorry we fell for Colin Powell's performance at the United Nations. Sorry we couldn't bring ourselves to hold the administration's feet to the fire before the war, when it really mattered.

"Maybe we'll do a better job next war."

Yahoo! News - Bush Campaign Blasts Kerry's Bible Quote

Kerry never mentioned Bush by name during his speech Sunday at New North Side Baptist Church, but aimed his criticism at "our present national leadership." Kerry cited Scripture in his appeal for the worshippers, including James 2:14, "What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds?"

"The Scriptures say, what does it profit, my brother, if someone says he has faith but does not have works?" Kerry said. "When we look at what is happening in America today, where are the works of compassion?"

The Bush camp is outraged! Outraged! But a man who wears his religion on his (right) sleeve like Bush shouldn't be afeared of one of those damnable Papists quoting Bible at him! Where are the "no God before me" flings about priests? The anti-trinity rhetoric? The "the Pope will run the US from Rome" jibes? No, Bush should come out swinging on this one. Everyone knows the average born-again can run any Catholic into the ground when it comes to scripitural studies.

Seriously, you wear your hard right literal religion on your sleeve like Bush does, and then run a "compassionate conservative" campaign, followed by a hard neo-right presidency, and then you complain when somebody gets a good shot about your compassion(less) presidency? After all how much compassion does it take to exploit 9/11 to get reelected?

Yahoo! News - Pope Says Sundays for God, Not Sports

The Pope vs. The NFL?

Cancel the 2005 Academy Award, the contest is over.

Hilarious review of Dawn of the Dead that I found over at the forums on http://www.soundofurchin.com/

http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?action=m&board=1600684464&tid=cald&sid=1600684464&mid=107553

An unusually erudite post to a Yahoo! message board re: SCO's continuing barratry:

It's Not Whether We Win, But How
by: saddam_bohorfoush

I think that a lot of the frustration being expressed by the pro-sco camp over Groklaw has to do with Groklaw's apparent ability to *completely* disrupt a tried and true strategy that has so far extracted millions from usurped IP. What the SCO camp seem not to understand to this point is how the community they are now attacking is substantially different from their previous adversaries. They're just getting to know us; we're just now establishing our reputation. That's why it's important to not just win, but to slam dunk this. We need to establish a reputation as a group that doesn't just leave a smoking crater, but one that keeps pushing the "launch" button, continually landing ordinance on target, even though the crater is devoid of anything but well-used carbon atoms.

When truth, knowledge, and smarts are all we have on our side, against a multi-billion-dollar war chest, it's extremely important to establish a winning reputation early and often. Eventually, after many more battles than just this one, opponents to free/open software may come to understand that multi-million dollar assaults are completely lossy. That won't happen without our constant vigilance.

When these sorts of attacks stop, we'll need to be prepared to respond to the next sort of attack, and so on. Long after Darl is contemplating what is the correct medical procedure for getting his ass to stop bleeding, others will still be on the assault.

Open Source Initiative OSI - Doc10:Halloween Documents

As ESR sums up:

There you have it. A hundred million funnelled from Microsoft to SCO, of which they have $68.5 million left. Their 10Qs reveal that every other line of cash inflow is statistical noise by comparison. The brave new SCOsource business model is now clear: sue your customers, shill for Microsoft, kite your stock, and pray you stay out of jail.

My Way News: "The BBC America series 'The Office,' which stars co-creator Ricky Gervais as an embarrassingly annoying boss at a British paper merchant, defeated 'Arrested Development,''Monk,''Sex and the City' and 'Will & Grace' for best comedy show. The critically lauded 'The Office' is being developed into an American version.
'I'm not from these parts,' Gervais said. 'I'm from a little place called England ... We used to run the world before you.'"

Cute.

Yahoo! News - Ted Nugent Injured in Chainsaw Accident

Got farked with the "Obvious" tag... heh.

Recently on IM:

skywind: now, to see if i can track down my library path error... trying to use JMagick, a java wrapper that uses native calls to ImageMagick's library apis...
skywind: and the native part isn't playing nicely within tomcat. it's fine as my user at the prompt tho, so I know the system is installed right.
mcsey: wrappers that don't talk right aren't much use at all
skywind: exactly

Shows at 9:00 and 11:00 two drink minimun

Yahoo! News - Greenspan Defends Himself on '90s Bubble

The article describes a speech that Greenspan gave defending his Clinton era Federal Reserve policies. I can't understand why the Federal Reserve Chairman would have to explain why he stewarded the economy to its greatest expansion ever.

A theory: FOXNews, Bush's spin doctors, et al need a way to make Dubya's record on the economy seem not so bad. Step one is to discredit the economic progress of the '90's as "irrational exuberance". Basically say that, "If the economy had not burned that hot then, it would not have been so cold during the first 3/4's of the Bush administration." Step two is to get your corporate buddies to start hiring and saying, "Boy those tax cuts sure are letting us hire more people. Maybe if they have jobs they'll have more kids to pay off the deficits we are running up." Step three...

Reelection.

Get ready for "Four More George".

Slashdot | Weird Presents Anyone?: "I got (Score:4, Funny)
by Sarojin (446404) on Thursday December 25, @02:46PM (#7809229)
( Last Journal: Saturday December 06, @10:48PM )
a dildo for Christmas. From my elderly neighbor! I'm a male!
[ Reply to This ]



Re:I got (Score:4, Funny)
by solefald (314751) on Thursday December 25, @04:31PM (#7809732)
perhaps he wants you to go and fuck yourself? ;) "