1.27.2005
Guantanamo Tactics Revealed
Just when you thought it had gone away that travesty of a prison they call Guantanamo Bay has come back into the news. A former translator at the infamous prison detailed the twisted tactics the US is using to interrogate suspected terrorists:
[ed: Emphasis Added] Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account.
A draft manuscript obtained by The Associated Press is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review for a planned book that details ways the U.S. military used women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation tactics to get terror suspects to talk.
It's the most revealing account so far of interrogations at the secretive detention camp, where officials say they have halted some controversial techniques.
"I have really struggled with this because the detainees, their families and much of the world will think this is a religious war based on some of the techniques used, even though it is not the case," the author, former Army Sgt. Erik R. Saar, 29, told AP.
Saar didn't provide the manuscript or approach AP, but confirmed the authenticity of nine draft pages AP obtained. He requested his hometown remain private so he wouldn't be harassed. Saar, who is neither Muslim nor of Arab descent, worked as an Arabic translator at the U.S. camp in eastern Cuba from December 2002 to June 2003. At the time, it was under the command of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had a mandate to get better intelligence from prisoners, including alleged al-Qaida members caught in Afghanistan.
Saar said he witnessed about 20 interrogations and about three months after his arrival at the remote U.S. base he started noticing "disturbing" practices.
One female civilian contractor used a special outfit that included a miniskirt, thong underwear and a bra during late-night interrogations with prisoners, mostly Muslim men who consider it taboo to have close contact with women who aren't their wives.
Beginning in April 2003, "there hung a short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door" of one interrogation team's office, he writes. "Later I learned that this outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian contractors ... on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk."
Some Guantanamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by "prostitutes."
In another case, Saar describes a female military interrogator questioning an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Suspected Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour received pilot instruction for three months in 1996 and in December 1997 at a flight school in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"His female interrogator decided that she needed to turn up the heat," Saar writes, saying she repeatedly asked the detainee who had sent him to Arizona, telling him he could "cooperate" or "have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or talking to a lawyer.'"
The man closed his eyes and began to pray, Saar writes.
The female interrogator wanted to "break him," Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on his apparent erection.
The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.
The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash.
Strict interpretation of Islamic law forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.
"The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped "Secret."
The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes.
"She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee," he says. "As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, 'Who sent you to Arizona?' He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred.
"She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward" — so fiercely that he broke loose from one ankle shackle.
"He began to cry like a baby," the draft says, noting the interrogator left saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself.
Events Saar describes resemble two previous reports of abusive female interrogation tactics, although it wasn't possible to independently verify his account.
...Sexual tactics used by female interrogators have been criticized by the FBI (news - web sites), which complained in a letter obtained by AP last month that U.S. defense officials hadn't acted on complaints by FBI observers of "highly aggressive" interrogation techniques, including one in which a female interrogator grabbed a detainee's genitals.
About 20 percent of the guards at Guantanamo are women, said Lt. Col. James Marshall, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command. He wouldn't say how many of the interrogators were female.
Marshall wouldn't address whether the U.S. military had a specific strategy to use women.
"U.S. forces treat all detainees and conduct all interrogations, wherever they may occur, humanely and consistent with U.S. legal obligations, and in particular with legal obligations prohibiting torture," Marshall said late Wednesday.
But some officials at the U.S. Southern Command have questioned the formation of an all-female team as one of Guantanamo's "Immediate Reaction Force" units that subdue troublesome male prisoners in their cells, according to a document classified as secret and obtained by AP.
In one incident, dated June 19, 2004, "The detainee appears to be genuinely traumatized by a female escort securing the detainee's leg irons," according to the document, a U.S. Southern Command summary of videotapes shot when the teams were used.
...At Guantanamo, Saar said, "Interrogators were given a lot of latitude under Miller," the commander who went from the prison in Cuba to overseeing prisons in Iraq, where the Abu Ghraib scandal shocked the world with pictures revealing sexual humiliation of naked prisoners.
Several female troops have been charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Saar said he volunteered to go to Guantanamo because "I really believed in the mission," but then he became disillusioned during his six months at the prison.
After leaving the Army with more than four years service, Saar worked as a contractor briefly for the FBI.
The Department of Defense has censored parts of his draft, mainly blacking out people's names, said Saar, who hired Washington attorney Mark S. Zaid to represent him. Saar needed permission to publish because he signed a disclosure statement before going to Guantanamo.
The book, which Saar titled "Inside the Wire," is due out this year with Penguin Press.
Guantanamo has about 545 prisoners from some 40 countries, many held more than three years without charge or access to lawyers and many suspected of links to al-Qaida or Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, which harbored the terrorist network.
It's not hard to imagine that these female squadrons are being formed, since US officials obviously don't care much for "playing by the rules." Certainly, I understand that females exist in the military and are just as likely to be sent on certain detail. But when they are used in this manner, to apparently humiliate prisoners, many who are wrongfully imprisoned in the first place, only because their religion is different from ours is just outrageous. I hope they realize they're going to burn in hell for what they've done. I've never imagined such vile acts could ever be committed by someone attached to the United States. more...
[ed: Emphasis Added] Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing a miniskirt and thong underwear and in one case smearing a Saudi man's face with fake menstrual blood, according to an insider's written account.
A draft manuscript obtained by The Associated Press is classified as secret pending a Pentagon review for a planned book that details ways the U.S. military used women as part of tougher physical and psychological interrogation tactics to get terror suspects to talk.
It's the most revealing account so far of interrogations at the secretive detention camp, where officials say they have halted some controversial techniques.
"I have really struggled with this because the detainees, their families and much of the world will think this is a religious war based on some of the techniques used, even though it is not the case," the author, former Army Sgt. Erik R. Saar, 29, told AP.
Saar didn't provide the manuscript or approach AP, but confirmed the authenticity of nine draft pages AP obtained. He requested his hometown remain private so he wouldn't be harassed. Saar, who is neither Muslim nor of Arab descent, worked as an Arabic translator at the U.S. camp in eastern Cuba from December 2002 to June 2003. At the time, it was under the command of Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had a mandate to get better intelligence from prisoners, including alleged al-Qaida members caught in Afghanistan.
Saar said he witnessed about 20 interrogations and about three months after his arrival at the remote U.S. base he started noticing "disturbing" practices.
One female civilian contractor used a special outfit that included a miniskirt, thong underwear and a bra during late-night interrogations with prisoners, mostly Muslim men who consider it taboo to have close contact with women who aren't their wives.
Beginning in April 2003, "there hung a short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door" of one interrogation team's office, he writes. "Later I learned that this outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian contractors ... on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk."
Some Guantanamo prisoners who have been released say they were tormented by "prostitutes."
In another case, Saar describes a female military interrogator questioning an uncooperative 21-year-old Saudi detainee who allegedly had taken flying lessons in Arizona before the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Suspected Sept. 11 hijacker Hani Hanjour received pilot instruction for three months in 1996 and in December 1997 at a flight school in Scottsdale, Ariz.
"His female interrogator decided that she needed to turn up the heat," Saar writes, saying she repeatedly asked the detainee who had sent him to Arizona, telling him he could "cooperate" or "have no hope whatsoever of ever leaving this place or talking to a lawyer.'"
The man closed his eyes and began to pray, Saar writes.
The female interrogator wanted to "break him," Saar adds, describing how she removed her uniform top to expose a tight-fitting T-shirt and began taunting the detainee, touching her breasts, rubbing them against the prisoner's back and commenting on his apparent erection.
The detainee looked up and spat in her face, the manuscript recounts.
The interrogator left the room to ask a Muslim linguist how she could break the prisoner's reliance on God. The linguist told her to tell the detainee that she was menstruating, touch him, then make sure to turn off the water in his cell so he couldn't wash.
Strict interpretation of Islamic law forbids physical contact with women other than a man's wife or family, and with any menstruating women, who are considered unclean.
"The concept was to make the detainee feel that after talking to her he was unclean and was unable to go before his God in prayer and gain strength," says the draft, stamped "Secret."
The interrogator used ink from a red pen to fool the detainee, Saar writes.
"She then started to place her hands in her pants as she walked behind the detainee," he says. "As she circled around him he could see that she was taking her hand out of her pants. When it became visible the detainee saw what appeared to be red blood on her hand. She said, 'Who sent you to Arizona?' He then glared at her with a piercing look of hatred.
"She then wiped the red ink on his face. He shouted at the top of his lungs, spat at her and lunged forward" — so fiercely that he broke loose from one ankle shackle.
"He began to cry like a baby," the draft says, noting the interrogator left saying, "Have a fun night in your cell without any water to clean yourself.
Events Saar describes resemble two previous reports of abusive female interrogation tactics, although it wasn't possible to independently verify his account.
...Sexual tactics used by female interrogators have been criticized by the FBI (news - web sites), which complained in a letter obtained by AP last month that U.S. defense officials hadn't acted on complaints by FBI observers of "highly aggressive" interrogation techniques, including one in which a female interrogator grabbed a detainee's genitals.
About 20 percent of the guards at Guantanamo are women, said Lt. Col. James Marshall, a spokesman for U.S. Southern Command. He wouldn't say how many of the interrogators were female.
Marshall wouldn't address whether the U.S. military had a specific strategy to use women.
"U.S. forces treat all detainees and conduct all interrogations, wherever they may occur, humanely and consistent with U.S. legal obligations, and in particular with legal obligations prohibiting torture," Marshall said late Wednesday.
But some officials at the U.S. Southern Command have questioned the formation of an all-female team as one of Guantanamo's "Immediate Reaction Force" units that subdue troublesome male prisoners in their cells, according to a document classified as secret and obtained by AP.
In one incident, dated June 19, 2004, "The detainee appears to be genuinely traumatized by a female escort securing the detainee's leg irons," according to the document, a U.S. Southern Command summary of videotapes shot when the teams were used.
...At Guantanamo, Saar said, "Interrogators were given a lot of latitude under Miller," the commander who went from the prison in Cuba to overseeing prisons in Iraq, where the Abu Ghraib scandal shocked the world with pictures revealing sexual humiliation of naked prisoners.
Several female troops have been charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal.
Saar said he volunteered to go to Guantanamo because "I really believed in the mission," but then he became disillusioned during his six months at the prison.
After leaving the Army with more than four years service, Saar worked as a contractor briefly for the FBI.
The Department of Defense has censored parts of his draft, mainly blacking out people's names, said Saar, who hired Washington attorney Mark S. Zaid to represent him. Saar needed permission to publish because he signed a disclosure statement before going to Guantanamo.
The book, which Saar titled "Inside the Wire," is due out this year with Penguin Press.
Guantanamo has about 545 prisoners from some 40 countries, many held more than three years without charge or access to lawyers and many suspected of links to al-Qaida or Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime, which harbored the terrorist network.
It's not hard to imagine that these female squadrons are being formed, since US officials obviously don't care much for "playing by the rules." Certainly, I understand that females exist in the military and are just as likely to be sent on certain detail. But when they are used in this manner, to apparently humiliate prisoners, many who are wrongfully imprisoned in the first place, only because their religion is different from ours is just outrageous. I hope they realize they're going to burn in hell for what they've done. I've never imagined such vile acts could ever be committed by someone attached to the United States. more...
1.26.2005
Battle Won Over Gonzales
Well, we've won the battle, but we haven't won the war just yet. KOS is where I first read that many a dem on the judiciary committee voted against confirming Gonzales, though the Republicans had enough votes to push him through for a full house vote. Of note, Senator Russ Feingold (D-WI) voted against Gonzales despite his past record. Feingold has always given deference to a President's cabinet nominees; he even voted for Ashcroft, even though he didn't necessarily like the guy. Here's what he had to say about Gonzales:
As all of my colleagues on this Committee know, I believe that Presidents are entitled to a great deal of deference in their cabinet nominations. I have voted in favor of a number of this President's nominees, including the current Attorney General, with whom I had serious disagreements on matters of policy and general ideology. My votes may not have always pleased my political supporters, or my party's leadership. But in carrying out my part in the constitutional scheme, as one who is asked to advise on and consent to a President's nominations, I am guided by my conscience, and by the history and practices of the United States Senate. Rejecting a cabinet nominee is a very rare event. The decision to do so must never be taken lightly.
Mr. Chairman, I have reached the conclusion, after a great deal of thought and careful consideration, that I cannot support Judge Gonzales's nomination.
As usual, the best news bits aren't in US papers, but found over at this article from the UK:
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called Gonzales on Tuesday to tell him that he would voting against him.
Bush said that he chose Gonzales ``because of his sound judgment and role in shaping the administrations policies in the war on terrorism,'' Leahy said. ``Based on the glimpses of secret policy formulations and legal rationales that have come to light, I believe his judgments not to have been sound.''
``His judgment is defective,'' added Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.
Democrats complain that Gonzales was evasive with his answers to their questions about White House policies in the war on terror. They have used his nomination and that of secretary of state nominee Condoleezza Rice to criticize the Iraq war and the treatment of foreign prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
``The continuing effort to pin the blame for the torture scandal on a few bad apples among our soldiers while ignoring or even rewarding Mr. Gonzales and others responsible for the policy has sent the wrong message to our nation and the world,'' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. ``I cannot support a nominee who has done so much to harm America's basic interests and fundamental values.''
Republicans said Gonzales shouldn't be the scapegoat for what happened to foreign prisoners.
``Most of these allegations have nothing to do with Judge Gonzales and in any event have been thoroughly discussed,'' said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
Gonzales, who served as White House counsel during President Bush's first term, would replace John Ashcroft if confirmed. He would be the nation's first Hispanic attorney general.
Even if Gonzales is approved by the committee, Democrats say they will require several hours of debate on the Senate floor before allowing a confirmation vote.
``I think that a man who gave the legal advice to the president to allow this to take place is someone that deserves to be talked about on the Senate floor,'' Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Tuesday.
Gonzales has said he supported extending the expired federal assault weapons ban. He also told senators he wanted Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act this year, despite complaints that it is too intrusive.
I suppose we can only dream of actually keeping him out of the cabinet, but stranger things have happened. more...
As all of my colleagues on this Committee know, I believe that Presidents are entitled to a great deal of deference in their cabinet nominations. I have voted in favor of a number of this President's nominees, including the current Attorney General, with whom I had serious disagreements on matters of policy and general ideology. My votes may not have always pleased my political supporters, or my party's leadership. But in carrying out my part in the constitutional scheme, as one who is asked to advise on and consent to a President's nominations, I am guided by my conscience, and by the history and practices of the United States Senate. Rejecting a cabinet nominee is a very rare event. The decision to do so must never be taken lightly.
Mr. Chairman, I have reached the conclusion, after a great deal of thought and careful consideration, that I cannot support Judge Gonzales's nomination.
As usual, the best news bits aren't in US papers, but found over at this article from the UK:
Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., called Gonzales on Tuesday to tell him that he would voting against him.
Bush said that he chose Gonzales ``because of his sound judgment and role in shaping the administrations policies in the war on terrorism,'' Leahy said. ``Based on the glimpses of secret policy formulations and legal rationales that have come to light, I believe his judgments not to have been sound.''
``His judgment is defective,'' added Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del.
Democrats complain that Gonzales was evasive with his answers to their questions about White House policies in the war on terror. They have used his nomination and that of secretary of state nominee Condoleezza Rice to criticize the Iraq war and the treatment of foreign prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
``The continuing effort to pin the blame for the torture scandal on a few bad apples among our soldiers while ignoring or even rewarding Mr. Gonzales and others responsible for the policy has sent the wrong message to our nation and the world,'' said Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass. ``I cannot support a nominee who has done so much to harm America's basic interests and fundamental values.''
Republicans said Gonzales shouldn't be the scapegoat for what happened to foreign prisoners.
``Most of these allegations have nothing to do with Judge Gonzales and in any event have been thoroughly discussed,'' said Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.
Gonzales, who served as White House counsel during President Bush's first term, would replace John Ashcroft if confirmed. He would be the nation's first Hispanic attorney general.
Even if Gonzales is approved by the committee, Democrats say they will require several hours of debate on the Senate floor before allowing a confirmation vote.
``I think that a man who gave the legal advice to the president to allow this to take place is someone that deserves to be talked about on the Senate floor,'' Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said Tuesday.
Gonzales has said he supported extending the expired federal assault weapons ban. He also told senators he wanted Congress to reauthorize the Patriot Act this year, despite complaints that it is too intrusive.
I suppose we can only dream of actually keeping him out of the cabinet, but stranger things have happened. more...
1.25.2005
Gonzales TKO?
Well, the movement against Alberto Gonzales has grown quickly and I dare say it is possible (not probable) that he will be turned down for his post. KOS posted a list, which I would like to add my name to, of bloggers who are against Gonzales's Nomination:
Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. In this case, we, the undersigned bloggers, have decided to speak as one and collectively author a document of opposition. We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him.
As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales's advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales's legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law's undoing.
In January 2002, Gonzales advised the President that the United States Constitution does not apply to his actions as Commander in Chief, and thus the President could declare the Geneva Conventions inoperative. Gonzales's endorsement of the August 2002 Bybee/Yoo Memorandum approved a definition of torture so vague and evasive as to declare it nonexistent. Most shockingly, he has embraced the unacceptable view that the President has the power to ignore the Constitution, laws duly enacted by Congress and International treaties duly ratified by the United States. He has called the Geneva Conventions "quaint."
Legal opinions at the highest level have grave consequences. What were the consequences of Gonzales's actions? The policies for which Gonzales provided a cover of legality - views which he expressly reasserted in his Senate confirmation hearings - inexorably led to abuses that have undermined military discipline and the moral authority our nation once carried. His actions led directly to documented violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and widespread abusive conduct in locales around the world.
Michael Posner of Human Rights First observed: "After the horrific images from Abu Ghraib became public last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the world should 'judge us by our actions [and] watch how a democracy deals with the wrongdoing and with scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes.'" We agree. It is because of this that we believe the only proper course of action is for the Senate to reject Alberto Gonzales's nomination for Attorney General. As Posner notes, "[t]he world is indeed watching." Will the Senate condone torture? Will the Senate condone the rejection of the rule of law?
With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.
Add to this all the other stories about Gonzales's "selective memory" regarding his past actions and his ultra-cocky attitude and you have the recipe for what should be a good battle, at least if some of the dems out there have the guts.
Got a little free time? Email your local senator, quickly, and tell them that you don't support the nomination of Alberto Gonzales. more...
Unprecedented times call for unprecedented actions. In this case, we, the undersigned bloggers, have decided to speak as one and collectively author a document of opposition. We oppose the nomination of Alberto Gonzales to the position of Attorney General of the United States, and we urge every United States Senator to vote against him.
As the prime legal architect for the policy of torture adopted by the Bush Administration, Gonzales's advice led directly to the abandonment of longstanding federal laws, the Geneva Conventions, and the United States Constitution itself. Our country, in following Gonzales's legal opinions, has forsaken its commitment to human rights and the rule of law and shamed itself before the world with our conduct at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib. The United States, a nation founded on respect for law and human rights, should not have as its Attorney General the architect of the law's undoing.
In January 2002, Gonzales advised the President that the United States Constitution does not apply to his actions as Commander in Chief, and thus the President could declare the Geneva Conventions inoperative. Gonzales's endorsement of the August 2002 Bybee/Yoo Memorandum approved a definition of torture so vague and evasive as to declare it nonexistent. Most shockingly, he has embraced the unacceptable view that the President has the power to ignore the Constitution, laws duly enacted by Congress and International treaties duly ratified by the United States. He has called the Geneva Conventions "quaint."
Legal opinions at the highest level have grave consequences. What were the consequences of Gonzales's actions? The policies for which Gonzales provided a cover of legality - views which he expressly reasserted in his Senate confirmation hearings - inexorably led to abuses that have undermined military discipline and the moral authority our nation once carried. His actions led directly to documented violations at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and widespread abusive conduct in locales around the world.
Michael Posner of Human Rights First observed: "After the horrific images from Abu Ghraib became public last year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld insisted that the world should 'judge us by our actions [and] watch how a democracy deals with the wrongdoing and with scandal and the pain of acknowledging and correcting our own mistakes.'" We agree. It is because of this that we believe the only proper course of action is for the Senate to reject Alberto Gonzales's nomination for Attorney General. As Posner notes, "[t]he world is indeed watching." Will the Senate condone torture? Will the Senate condone the rejection of the rule of law?
With this nomination, we have arrived at a crossroads as a nation. Now is the time for all citizens of conscience to stand up and take responsibility for what the world saw, and, truly, much that we have not seen, at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere. We oppose the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, and we urge the Senate to reject him.
Add to this all the other stories about Gonzales's "selective memory" regarding his past actions and his ultra-cocky attitude and you have the recipe for what should be a good battle, at least if some of the dems out there have the guts.
Got a little free time? Email your local senator, quickly, and tell them that you don't support the nomination of Alberto Gonzales. more...
Swank + Eastwood * Freeman = Oscar
I attended a media screening for Million Dollar Baby last night and was absolutely blown away. It's rare to see a movie which brought out so many emotions. It brought out so many emotions you could barely keep up. The chemistry between Freeman and Eastwood (two real-life friends, and it shows) makes for some strikingly hilarious moments, in a movie that isn't billed as a comedy. The story of Swank's rags-to-riches character will lift your spirit, even if you're not a fan of boxing (and I am not). But most importantly, the movie expresses a deep emotion of sadness and regret that will haunt you, even after you've left the theatre. Swank, Eastwood and Freeman all excelled in their roles, but Swank in particular, as a championship calibur boxer who experiences downfall at the height of her career, shines like few before her. I've always been a fan of her work, but she is capable of showing world's of emotion through simple facial expressions.
Perhaps I've talked the movie up too much, but the ratings at Rotten Tomatoes seem to back me up. Roger Ebert summed it up as well as I ever could:
Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" is a masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true. It tells the story of an aging fight trainer and a hillbilly girl who thinks she can be a boxer. It is narrated by a former boxer who is the trainer's best friend. But it's not a boxing movie. It is a movie about a boxer. What else it is, all it is, how deep it goes, what emotional power it contains, I cannot suggest in this review, because I will not spoil the experience of following this story into the deepest secrets of life and death. This is the best film of the year.
...Movies are so often made of effects and sensation these days. This one is made of three people and how their actions grow out of who they are and why. Nothing else. But isn't that everything?
more...
Perhaps I've talked the movie up too much, but the ratings at Rotten Tomatoes seem to back me up. Roger Ebert summed it up as well as I ever could:
Clint Eastwood's "Million Dollar Baby" is a masterpiece, pure and simple, deep and true. It tells the story of an aging fight trainer and a hillbilly girl who thinks she can be a boxer. It is narrated by a former boxer who is the trainer's best friend. But it's not a boxing movie. It is a movie about a boxer. What else it is, all it is, how deep it goes, what emotional power it contains, I cannot suggest in this review, because I will not spoil the experience of following this story into the deepest secrets of life and death. This is the best film of the year.
...Movies are so often made of effects and sensation these days. This one is made of three people and how their actions grow out of who they are and why. Nothing else. But isn't that everything?
more...
Bush's DUI, Record Deficits & Evolution
Thanks to Notes From a Different Kitchen I ran into an interesting story about the man running for attorney general Alberto Gonzales. Seems Mr. Gonzales memory got hazy during questioning about how he supposedly helped his boss get off the hook about his DUI:
...Gonzales's most surprising answer may have come on a different subject: his role in helping President Bush escape jury duty in a drunken-driving case involving a dancer at an Austin strip club in 1996. The judge and other lawyers in the case last week disputed a written account of the matter provided by Gonzales to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It's a complete misrepresentation," said David Wahlberg, lawyer for the dancer, about Gonzales's account.
Bush's summons to serve as a juror in the drunken-driving case was, in retrospect, a fateful moment in his political career: by getting excused from jury duty he was able to avoid questions that would have required him to disclose his own 1976 arrest and conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) in Kennebunkport, Maine—an incident that didn't become public until the closing days of the 2000 campaign. (Bush, who had publicly declared his willingness to serve, had left blank on his jury questionnaire whether he had ever been "accused" in a criminal case.) Asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy to describe "in detail" the only court appearance he ever made on behalf of Bush, Gonzales—who was then chief counsel to the Texas governor—wrote that he had accompanied Bush the day he went to court "prepared to serve on a jury." While there, Gonzales wrote, he "observed" the defense lawyer make a motion to strike Bush from the jury panel "to which the prosecutor did not object." Asked by the judge whether he had "any views on this," Gonzales recalled, he said he did not.
While Gonzales's account tracks with the official court transcript, it leaves out a key part of what happened that day, according to Travis County Judge David Crain. In separate interviews, Crain—along with Wahlberg and prosecutor John Lastovica—told NEWSWEEK that, before the case began, Gonzales asked to have an off-the-record conference in the judge's chambers. Gonzales then asked Crain to "consider" striking Bush from the jury, making the novel "conflict of interest" argument that the Texas governor might one day be asked to pardon the defendant (who worked at an Austin nightclub called Sugar's), the judge said. "He [Gonzales] raised the issue," Crain said. Crain said he found Gonzales's argument surprising, since it was "extremely unlikely" that a drunken-driving conviction would ever lead to a pardon petition to Bush. But "out of deference" to the governor, Crain said, the other lawyers went along. Wahlberg said he agreed to make the motion striking Bush because he didn't want the hard-line governor on his jury anyway. But there was little doubt among the participants as to what was going on. "In public, they were making a big show of how he was prepared to serve," said Crain. "In the back room, they were trying to get him off."
Gonzales last week refused to waver. "Judge Gonzales has no recollection of requesting a meeting in chambers," a senior White House official said, adding that while Gonzales did recall that Bush's potential conflict was "discussed," he never "requested" that Bush be excused. "His answer to the Senate's question is accurate," the official said.
Very convenient, how he insists that his recolection is the right one, while everyone else remembers it completely different. I dislike this man more and more every day.
Next up, no matter where you heard it, the national deficit grows larger still, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Funny, four years ago, when Bush stepped in office, we had a record surplus, now we've got this:
he White House will project that this year’s federal deficit will hit $427 billion, a senior administration official said Tuesday, a record partly driven by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
advertisement
The official, among three who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the estimate was a conservative one that assumed some higher spending than other analysts use. Last February, the White House projected that the 2004 shortfall would hit $521 billion, only to see it come in at $412 billion.
The official said the figure represented progress because it would be smaller than last year’s record $412 billion shortfall when compared to the size of the growing U.S. economy. That ratio is a key measure of the deficit’s potency.
“Our projections will show we remain on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009,” one of President Bush’s budget goals, the official told reporters.
Even so, the number was among a blizzard of figures released Tuesday that illustrated how federal deficits remain a problem that Bush and Congress must reckon with.
Scarier still is that Bush is asking for even more in war funding from congress, as well:
Underscoring budget pressures hounding lawmakers, senior administration officials invited reporters to the White House to outline their upcoming request for an additional $80 billion, or slightly more, to help pay this year’s costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
...There is little doubt lawmakers will follow Bush’s lead, as they have repeatedly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The latest proposal would bring war spending so far to about $308 billion, including $25 billion to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service, which provides reports to lawmakers.
Nice. But, worry not, fellow Americans. Our finances may be in a bind, but at least our kids are getting excellent educations, places like Cobb County Georgia excluded. I mean, who's the nutbag who came up with this:
One line of attack - on display in Cobb County, Ga., in recent weeks - is to discredit evolution as little more than a theory that is open to question. Another strategy - now playing out in Dover, Pa. - is to make students aware of an alternative theory called "intelligent design," which infers the existence of an intelligent agent without any specific reference to God. These new approaches may seem harmless to a casual observer, but they still constitute an improper effort by religious advocates to impose their own slant on the teaching of evolution.
•
The Cobb County fight centers on a sticker that the board inserted into a new biology textbook to placate opponents of evolution. The school board, to its credit, was trying to strengthen the teaching of evolution after years in which it banned study of human origins in the elementary and middle schools and sidelined the topic as an elective in high school, in apparent violation of state curriculum standards. When the new course of study raised hackles among parents and citizens (more than 2,300 signed a petition), the board sought to quiet the controversy by placing a three-sentence sticker in the textbooks:
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
Although the board clearly thought this was a reasonable compromise, and many readers might think it unexceptional, it is actually an insidious effort to undermine the science curriculum. The first sentence sounds like a warning to parents that the film they are about to watch with their children contains pornography. Evolution is so awful that the reader must be warned that it is discussed inside the textbook. The second sentence makes it sound as though evolution is little more than a hunch, the popular understanding of the word "theory," whereas theories in science are carefully constructed frameworks for understanding a vast array of facts. The National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific organization, has declared evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have" and says it is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus.
The third sentence, urging that evolution be studied carefully and critically, seems like a fine idea. The only problem is, it singles out evolution as the only subject so shaky it needs critical judgment. Every subject in the curriculum should be studied carefully and critically. Indeed, the interpretations taught in history, economics, sociology, political science, literature and other fields of study are far less grounded in fact and professional consensus than is evolutionary biology.
A more honest sticker would describe evolution as the dominant theory in the field and an extremely fruitful scientific tool. The sad fact is, the school board, in its zeal to be accommodating, swallowed the language of the anti-evolution crowd. Although the sticker makes no mention of religion and the school board as a whole was not trying to advance religion, a federal judge in Georgia ruled that the sticker amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion because it was rooted in long-running religious challenges to evolution. In particular, the sticker's assertion that "evolution is a theory, not a fact" adopted the latest tactical language used by anti-evolutionists to dilute Darwinism, thereby putting the school board on the side of religious critics of evolution. That court decision is being appealed. Supporters of sound science education can only hope that the courts, and school districts, find a way to repel this latest assault on the most well-grounded theory in modern biology.
What I don't get is how all these Creationist zealots can completely overlook the honest scientific proof that supports evolutionary theory. Certainly, it's possible to believe in a "Creator" as well as evolution, but these people seem wholy incapable. I should point out that an NPR story last week stated that the Cobb Co. board had lost a case and was told to remove the stickers, but they had so far not done as much. What a wonderful world. more...
...Gonzales's most surprising answer may have come on a different subject: his role in helping President Bush escape jury duty in a drunken-driving case involving a dancer at an Austin strip club in 1996. The judge and other lawyers in the case last week disputed a written account of the matter provided by Gonzales to the Senate Judiciary Committee. "It's a complete misrepresentation," said David Wahlberg, lawyer for the dancer, about Gonzales's account.
Bush's summons to serve as a juror in the drunken-driving case was, in retrospect, a fateful moment in his political career: by getting excused from jury duty he was able to avoid questions that would have required him to disclose his own 1976 arrest and conviction for driving under the influence of alcohol (DUI) in Kennebunkport, Maine—an incident that didn't become public until the closing days of the 2000 campaign. (Bush, who had publicly declared his willingness to serve, had left blank on his jury questionnaire whether he had ever been "accused" in a criminal case.) Asked by Sen. Patrick Leahy to describe "in detail" the only court appearance he ever made on behalf of Bush, Gonzales—who was then chief counsel to the Texas governor—wrote that he had accompanied Bush the day he went to court "prepared to serve on a jury." While there, Gonzales wrote, he "observed" the defense lawyer make a motion to strike Bush from the jury panel "to which the prosecutor did not object." Asked by the judge whether he had "any views on this," Gonzales recalled, he said he did not.
While Gonzales's account tracks with the official court transcript, it leaves out a key part of what happened that day, according to Travis County Judge David Crain. In separate interviews, Crain—along with Wahlberg and prosecutor John Lastovica—told NEWSWEEK that, before the case began, Gonzales asked to have an off-the-record conference in the judge's chambers. Gonzales then asked Crain to "consider" striking Bush from the jury, making the novel "conflict of interest" argument that the Texas governor might one day be asked to pardon the defendant (who worked at an Austin nightclub called Sugar's), the judge said. "He [Gonzales] raised the issue," Crain said. Crain said he found Gonzales's argument surprising, since it was "extremely unlikely" that a drunken-driving conviction would ever lead to a pardon petition to Bush. But "out of deference" to the governor, Crain said, the other lawyers went along. Wahlberg said he agreed to make the motion striking Bush because he didn't want the hard-line governor on his jury anyway. But there was little doubt among the participants as to what was going on. "In public, they were making a big show of how he was prepared to serve," said Crain. "In the back room, they were trying to get him off."
Gonzales last week refused to waver. "Judge Gonzales has no recollection of requesting a meeting in chambers," a senior White House official said, adding that while Gonzales did recall that Bush's potential conflict was "discussed," he never "requested" that Bush be excused. "His answer to the Senate's question is accurate," the official said.
Very convenient, how he insists that his recolection is the right one, while everyone else remembers it completely different. I dislike this man more and more every day.
Next up, no matter where you heard it, the national deficit grows larger still, and there's nothing you can do to stop it. Funny, four years ago, when Bush stepped in office, we had a record surplus, now we've got this:
he White House will project that this year’s federal deficit will hit $427 billion, a senior administration official said Tuesday, a record partly driven by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
advertisement
The official, among three who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity, said the estimate was a conservative one that assumed some higher spending than other analysts use. Last February, the White House projected that the 2004 shortfall would hit $521 billion, only to see it come in at $412 billion.
The official said the figure represented progress because it would be smaller than last year’s record $412 billion shortfall when compared to the size of the growing U.S. economy. That ratio is a key measure of the deficit’s potency.
“Our projections will show we remain on track to cut the deficit in half by 2009,” one of President Bush’s budget goals, the official told reporters.
Even so, the number was among a blizzard of figures released Tuesday that illustrated how federal deficits remain a problem that Bush and Congress must reckon with.
Scarier still is that Bush is asking for even more in war funding from congress, as well:
Underscoring budget pressures hounding lawmakers, senior administration officials invited reporters to the White House to outline their upcoming request for an additional $80 billion, or slightly more, to help pay this year’s costs of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
...There is little doubt lawmakers will follow Bush’s lead, as they have repeatedly since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The latest proposal would bring war spending so far to about $308 billion, including $25 billion to rebuild Iraq and Afghanistan, according to the Congressional Research Service, which provides reports to lawmakers.
Nice. But, worry not, fellow Americans. Our finances may be in a bind, but at least our kids are getting excellent educations, places like Cobb County Georgia excluded. I mean, who's the nutbag who came up with this:
One line of attack - on display in Cobb County, Ga., in recent weeks - is to discredit evolution as little more than a theory that is open to question. Another strategy - now playing out in Dover, Pa. - is to make students aware of an alternative theory called "intelligent design," which infers the existence of an intelligent agent without any specific reference to God. These new approaches may seem harmless to a casual observer, but they still constitute an improper effort by religious advocates to impose their own slant on the teaching of evolution.
•
The Cobb County fight centers on a sticker that the board inserted into a new biology textbook to placate opponents of evolution. The school board, to its credit, was trying to strengthen the teaching of evolution after years in which it banned study of human origins in the elementary and middle schools and sidelined the topic as an elective in high school, in apparent violation of state curriculum standards. When the new course of study raised hackles among parents and citizens (more than 2,300 signed a petition), the board sought to quiet the controversy by placing a three-sentence sticker in the textbooks:
"This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered."
Although the board clearly thought this was a reasonable compromise, and many readers might think it unexceptional, it is actually an insidious effort to undermine the science curriculum. The first sentence sounds like a warning to parents that the film they are about to watch with their children contains pornography. Evolution is so awful that the reader must be warned that it is discussed inside the textbook. The second sentence makes it sound as though evolution is little more than a hunch, the popular understanding of the word "theory," whereas theories in science are carefully constructed frameworks for understanding a vast array of facts. The National Academy of Sciences, the nation's most prestigious scientific organization, has declared evolution "one of the strongest and most useful scientific theories we have" and says it is supported by an overwhelming scientific consensus.
The third sentence, urging that evolution be studied carefully and critically, seems like a fine idea. The only problem is, it singles out evolution as the only subject so shaky it needs critical judgment. Every subject in the curriculum should be studied carefully and critically. Indeed, the interpretations taught in history, economics, sociology, political science, literature and other fields of study are far less grounded in fact and professional consensus than is evolutionary biology.
A more honest sticker would describe evolution as the dominant theory in the field and an extremely fruitful scientific tool. The sad fact is, the school board, in its zeal to be accommodating, swallowed the language of the anti-evolution crowd. Although the sticker makes no mention of religion and the school board as a whole was not trying to advance religion, a federal judge in Georgia ruled that the sticker amounted to an unconstitutional endorsement of religion because it was rooted in long-running religious challenges to evolution. In particular, the sticker's assertion that "evolution is a theory, not a fact" adopted the latest tactical language used by anti-evolutionists to dilute Darwinism, thereby putting the school board on the side of religious critics of evolution. That court decision is being appealed. Supporters of sound science education can only hope that the courts, and school districts, find a way to repel this latest assault on the most well-grounded theory in modern biology.
What I don't get is how all these Creationist zealots can completely overlook the honest scientific proof that supports evolutionary theory. Certainly, it's possible to believe in a "Creator" as well as evolution, but these people seem wholy incapable. I should point out that an NPR story last week stated that the Cobb Co. board had lost a case and was told to remove the stickers, but they had so far not done as much. What a wonderful world. more...
1.21.2005
The Day After
Wish this was a joke, but apparently the Federal Emergency Management Agency decided that it would be a good idea to make a game for kids involving Tsunami cleanup. Crazy old me, I'd call it a tiny bit insensitive, considering the major disaster that just hit Asia, but what do I know?
Mr. P sent me a nice link to Thom Friedman's latest OpEd over at the New York Times. Here's an excerpt from An American in Paris:
Why are Europeans so blue over George Bush's re-election? Because Europe is the world's biggest "blue state." This whole region is a rhapsody in blue. These days, even the small group of anti-anti-Americans in the European Union is uncomfortable being associated with Mr. Bush. There are Euro-conservatives, but, aside from, maybe, the ruling party in Italy, there is nothing here that quite corresponds to the anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-tax, anti-national-health-care, anti-Kyoto, openly religious, pro-Iraq-war Bush Republican Party.
If you took all three major parties in Britain - Labor, Liberals and Conservatives - "their views on God, guns, gays, the death penalty, national health care and the environment would all fit somewhere inside the Democratic Party," said James Rubin, the Clinton State Department spokesman, who works in London. "That's why I get along with all three parties here. They're all Democrats!"
While officially every European government is welcoming the inauguration of President Bush, the prevailing mood on the continent (if I may engage in a ridiculously sweeping generalization!) still seems to be one of shock and awe that Americans actually re-elected this man.
Before Mr. Bush's re-election, the prevailing attitude in Europe was definitely: "We're not anti-American. We're anti-Bush." But now that the American people have voted to re-elect Mr. Bush, Europe has a problem maintaining this distinction. The logic of the Europeans' position is that they should now be anti-American, not just anti-Bush, but most Europeans don't seem to want to go there. They know America is more complex. So there is a vague hope in the air that when Mr. Bush visits Europe next month, he'll come bearing an olive branch that will enable both sides to at least pretend to hold this loveless marriage together for the sake of the kids.
...Funnily enough, the one country on this side of the ocean that would have elected Mr. Bush is not in Europe, but the Middle East: it's Iran, where many young people apparently hunger for Mr. Bush to remove their despotic leaders, the way he did in Iraq.
An Oxford student who had just returned from research in Iran told me that young Iranians were "loving anything their government hates," such as Mr. Bush, "and hating anything their government loves." Tehran is festooned in "Down With America" graffiti, the student said, but when he tried to take pictures of it, the Iranian students he was with urged him not to. They said it was just put there by their government and was not how most Iranians felt.
Iran, he said, is the ultimate "red state." Go figure.
Next up, Democratic Underground was nice enough to point out the most memorable comment about the inauguration over at Salon's War Room:
Meanwhile, our favorite TV nugget of the day so far came courtesy of Barbara Walters, who matter-of-factly informed viewers that Laura Bush recently had her hair done by famed New York City stylist Sally Hershberger, who charges $700 for a haircut. Just take a moment to think back to the go-go '90s, and try to imagine what the press' hysterical reaction would have been if word ever leaked out that Hillary Clinton had sat down for a $700 trim."
Now, I'd rather not speculate about what might have been said, had this happened several years ago. However, I can honestly say that not only does $700 seem just a bit excessive, you have to wonder how that sort of thing is approved, and how often it happens.
More importantly, I don't think an inauguration and its festivities should cost over $50 million dollars:
Estimates on the cost of the Bush inauguration have wavered in the $30 million to $40 million range, maybe as high as $50 million for three or four days of events.
...The inauguration festivities will be supported by private donations from oil companies, insurance companies, investment and mortgage companies and other companies that will be opening up their checkbooks out of the goodness of their hearts, expecting nothing in return, just looking for a chance to jitterbug at any one of nine balls in the nation’s capital, watch fireworks displays, listen to a youth concert, see a parade — and, oh yeah, there’s a swearing-in ceremony, too.
Organizers say the festivities would have a solemnity missing from other inaugurals because the country remains at war.
“There have been 55 inaugurations and very few have taken place during wartime, and this inaugural will reflect that,” said Steve Schmidt, spokesman for the inaugural committee.
Part of that “solemnity” will likely come at the Commander-in-Chief Ball, a new event this time around.
It will be free of charge to 2,000 members of the armed services and their families, featuring those who have recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, or those who will be deployed there soon.
Don’t get too comfortable, taxpayer; you will be paying something. How about a little thing called security?
The $40 million for the inaugural gala doesn’t include the cost of security. While the string quartets fiddle, ball-goers can look at the windows and see evidence of millions being spent for security.
The District of Columbia anticipates spending $8.8 million in overtime pay for about 2,000 D.C. police officers; $2.7 million to pay 1,000-plus officers being sent by other jurisdictions across the country; $3 million to construct reviewing stands; and $2.5 million to place public works, health, transportation, fire, emergency management and business services on emergency footing.
Somehow, I failed to see any sort of "solemnity" in all those huge balls they were throwing. Solemn people would have the swearing-in, hold a somber dinner and then gone back to work helping our troops and rebuilding our poor, broken economy. This was one huge party that lasted a whole three days.
After the party ended, Republicans decided they needed to get back on the offensive. Their target this time: Spongebob Squarepants:
On the heels of electoral victories barring same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.
"Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, asked the guests Tuesday night at a black-tie dinner for members of Congress and political allies to celebrate the election results.
SpongeBob needed no introduction. In addition to his popularity among children, who watch his cartoon show, he has become a well-known camp figure among adult gay men, perhaps because he holds hands with his animated sidekick Patrick and likes to watch the imaginary television show "The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy."
Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge" that includes tolerance for differences of "sexual identity."
..."We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids," he said. "It is a classic bait and switch."
We all remember how Bert and Ernie were accused of being gay. I don't know if I speak for the rest of you, but I know growing up watching them made me queer as a three dollar bill.
Lastly, let's all relax for a moment and thank these patriots, who have stood up for true freedom and the liberty we all hold so dear. They are the true Patriots. more...
Mr. P sent me a nice link to Thom Friedman's latest OpEd over at the New York Times. Here's an excerpt from An American in Paris:
Why are Europeans so blue over George Bush's re-election? Because Europe is the world's biggest "blue state." This whole region is a rhapsody in blue. These days, even the small group of anti-anti-Americans in the European Union is uncomfortable being associated with Mr. Bush. There are Euro-conservatives, but, aside from, maybe, the ruling party in Italy, there is nothing here that quite corresponds to the anti-abortion, anti-gay, anti-tax, anti-national-health-care, anti-Kyoto, openly religious, pro-Iraq-war Bush Republican Party.
If you took all three major parties in Britain - Labor, Liberals and Conservatives - "their views on God, guns, gays, the death penalty, national health care and the environment would all fit somewhere inside the Democratic Party," said James Rubin, the Clinton State Department spokesman, who works in London. "That's why I get along with all three parties here. They're all Democrats!"
While officially every European government is welcoming the inauguration of President Bush, the prevailing mood on the continent (if I may engage in a ridiculously sweeping generalization!) still seems to be one of shock and awe that Americans actually re-elected this man.
Before Mr. Bush's re-election, the prevailing attitude in Europe was definitely: "We're not anti-American. We're anti-Bush." But now that the American people have voted to re-elect Mr. Bush, Europe has a problem maintaining this distinction. The logic of the Europeans' position is that they should now be anti-American, not just anti-Bush, but most Europeans don't seem to want to go there. They know America is more complex. So there is a vague hope in the air that when Mr. Bush visits Europe next month, he'll come bearing an olive branch that will enable both sides to at least pretend to hold this loveless marriage together for the sake of the kids.
...Funnily enough, the one country on this side of the ocean that would have elected Mr. Bush is not in Europe, but the Middle East: it's Iran, where many young people apparently hunger for Mr. Bush to remove their despotic leaders, the way he did in Iraq.
An Oxford student who had just returned from research in Iran told me that young Iranians were "loving anything their government hates," such as Mr. Bush, "and hating anything their government loves." Tehran is festooned in "Down With America" graffiti, the student said, but when he tried to take pictures of it, the Iranian students he was with urged him not to. They said it was just put there by their government and was not how most Iranians felt.
Iran, he said, is the ultimate "red state." Go figure.
Next up, Democratic Underground was nice enough to point out the most memorable comment about the inauguration over at Salon's War Room:
Meanwhile, our favorite TV nugget of the day so far came courtesy of Barbara Walters, who matter-of-factly informed viewers that Laura Bush recently had her hair done by famed New York City stylist Sally Hershberger, who charges $700 for a haircut. Just take a moment to think back to the go-go '90s, and try to imagine what the press' hysterical reaction would have been if word ever leaked out that Hillary Clinton had sat down for a $700 trim."
Now, I'd rather not speculate about what might have been said, had this happened several years ago. However, I can honestly say that not only does $700 seem just a bit excessive, you have to wonder how that sort of thing is approved, and how often it happens.
More importantly, I don't think an inauguration and its festivities should cost over $50 million dollars:
Estimates on the cost of the Bush inauguration have wavered in the $30 million to $40 million range, maybe as high as $50 million for three or four days of events.
...The inauguration festivities will be supported by private donations from oil companies, insurance companies, investment and mortgage companies and other companies that will be opening up their checkbooks out of the goodness of their hearts, expecting nothing in return, just looking for a chance to jitterbug at any one of nine balls in the nation’s capital, watch fireworks displays, listen to a youth concert, see a parade — and, oh yeah, there’s a swearing-in ceremony, too.
Organizers say the festivities would have a solemnity missing from other inaugurals because the country remains at war.
“There have been 55 inaugurations and very few have taken place during wartime, and this inaugural will reflect that,” said Steve Schmidt, spokesman for the inaugural committee.
Part of that “solemnity” will likely come at the Commander-in-Chief Ball, a new event this time around.
It will be free of charge to 2,000 members of the armed services and their families, featuring those who have recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan, or those who will be deployed there soon.
Don’t get too comfortable, taxpayer; you will be paying something. How about a little thing called security?
The $40 million for the inaugural gala doesn’t include the cost of security. While the string quartets fiddle, ball-goers can look at the windows and see evidence of millions being spent for security.
The District of Columbia anticipates spending $8.8 million in overtime pay for about 2,000 D.C. police officers; $2.7 million to pay 1,000-plus officers being sent by other jurisdictions across the country; $3 million to construct reviewing stands; and $2.5 million to place public works, health, transportation, fire, emergency management and business services on emergency footing.
Somehow, I failed to see any sort of "solemnity" in all those huge balls they were throwing. Solemn people would have the swearing-in, hold a somber dinner and then gone back to work helping our troops and rebuilding our poor, broken economy. This was one huge party that lasted a whole three days.
After the party ended, Republicans decided they needed to get back on the offensive. Their target this time: Spongebob Squarepants:
On the heels of electoral victories barring same-sex marriage, some influential conservative Christian groups are turning their attention to a new target: the cartoon character SpongeBob SquarePants.
"Does anybody here know SpongeBob?" Dr. James C. Dobson, the founder of Focus on the Family, asked the guests Tuesday night at a black-tie dinner for members of Congress and political allies to celebrate the election results.
SpongeBob needed no introduction. In addition to his popularity among children, who watch his cartoon show, he has become a well-known camp figure among adult gay men, perhaps because he holds hands with his animated sidekick Patrick and likes to watch the imaginary television show "The Adventures of Mermaid Man and Barnacle Boy."
Now, Dr. Dobson said, SpongeBob's creators had enlisted him in a "pro-homosexual video," in which he appeared alongside children's television colleagues like Barney and Jimmy Neutron, among many others. The makers of the video, he said, planned to mail it to thousands of elementary schools to promote a "tolerance pledge" that includes tolerance for differences of "sexual identity."
..."We see the video as an insidious means by which the organization is manipulating and potentially brainwashing kids," he said. "It is a classic bait and switch."
We all remember how Bert and Ernie were accused of being gay. I don't know if I speak for the rest of you, but I know growing up watching them made me queer as a three dollar bill.
Lastly, let's all relax for a moment and thank these patriots, who have stood up for true freedom and the liberty we all hold so dear. They are the true Patriots. more...
1.20.2005
Return of the Low
Just a note: I've returned. Reading some liberal non-fiction as well as this amazing inauguration have possessed me to take back up my former pastime of blogging. Welcome to the new and soon to be hopping Caffeine Low. It may take me a few weeks to get my feet back on the ground, but if you're looking for links to pertinent news about politics, with a few stories about gaming, technology and music thrown in, here's the place to be. Sign up over on the right if you'd like to be emailed anything I post, in case my posts get sporadic, as they sometimes are.
Just a quickie to get you going, ever wonder what it'd be like to have a truly dissenting voice on FoxNews? Here's how it might go:
http://www.oliverwillis.com/node/view/1695
FoxNews just doesn't know how to properly screen their guests, I suppose, as this isn't the first time they've been had. Can't say I mind, though. It makes for some good TV. more...
Just a quickie to get you going, ever wonder what it'd be like to have a truly dissenting voice on FoxNews? Here's how it might go:
http://www.oliverwillis.com/node/view/1695
FoxNews just doesn't know how to properly screen their guests, I suppose, as this isn't the first time they've been had. Can't say I mind, though. It makes for some good TV. more...
Bush Inaugural Approval Appalling
The link to Air America probably won't be active for much longer. This is referring to their "Top Stories" section, which doesn't seem to have any sort of permalink. Anyway, I'll link as much stuff as I can, as it's all very pertinent.
Here we stand, at the dawn of a new Bush Era. The country is in shambles, our economy is getting fucked over by the Shrub and hundreds of thousands(perhaps millions?) have died in Iraq, though we've not found a single WMD. So, what do the American people, a not-quite-majority of who re-elected this nut, think of where we're going? Well, perhaps this CBS/NYTimes poll has the answer:
Fifty-eight percent of Americans say their outlook on a second Bush term is generally optimistic – a low number when compared to Mr. Bush's approval rating before his first term or Bill Clinton's before his second. At the same time, 56 percent say the country is on the wrong track, versus 39 percent who say it is on the right track.
Looking four years down the line, most Americans see very little changing, despite the ambitious agenda Mr. Bush is laying out for his second term.
Most expect they will be as safe from terror at the end of a second Bush term as they are today, but not safer. They think the economy and education system will be the same, but not better.
Despite Mr. Bush's focus on tax cuts, 41 percent of Americans say their taxes will be higher in four years, while just 9 percent say their taxes will be lower; 47 percent expect their taxes to be the same.
While Mr. Bush has a stated goal of cutting the national deficit in half, two-thirds of Americans expect the deficit to be higher after four years.
A slight plurality of Americans, 38 percent, say there will be fewer U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of a second Bush term. But 30 percent say there will be more, and 28 percent say the number will be the same.
As for the most ambitious and controversial item on Mr. Bush's agenda – overhauling Social Security - Americans expect to see big changes by 2008. But 50 percent say Mr. Bush's call for private retirement savings accounts is a bad idea, versus 45 percent who say it's a good idea.
Perhaps best is the last part, where a pure majority of American's feel that Mr. Bush's biggest issue, Social Security reform, is a terrible idea. Of course, don't expect him to take notice of that fact. He'll never have any idea of what the "average American" thinks, from inside that little bubble of his. Moving on...
Apparently foreigners continue to hate America, as shown by this poll:
A poll of 21 countries published yesterday - reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years.
Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force.
The survey also indicated for the first time that dislike of Mr Bush is translating into a dislike of Americans in general.
The numbers get worse by the day. As the election date passes, and things get worse in Iraq(we all know they will), perception will darken and eventually it won't be safe to travel abroad. Good thing I got my European vacation out of the way long ago.
Of course, we all know Condi Rice is moving up in the world. Thank God, because she certainly doesn't need to be looking out for our security anymore. I mean, could the memo have been any more plainly-worded? Anyway, big ups to Barbera Boxer for showing she's got some sense(as well as Mr. Kerry) and here's David Corn's excellent take on the situation, even if it's basically "old news."
This just in from the "ironic offings" department, check out what happened in Iraq, according to the LA Times:
An American contractor gunned down last month in Iraq had accused Iraqi Defense Ministry officials of corruption days before his death, according to a report in Thursday's Los Angeles Times. "Dale Stoffel, 43, was shot to death Dec. 8 shortly after leaving an Iraqi military base north of Baghdad, an attack attributed at the time to Iraqi insurgents. Also killed was a business associate, Joseph Wemple, 49," the LA Times reports. The killings came after Stoffel alerted senior U.S. officials in Washington "that he believed Iraqi Defense Ministry officials were part of a kickback scheme involving a multimillion-dollar contract awarded to his company."
Of course, a little more blood on the hands of Bush(or whoever ordered this execution) shouldn't matter. I mean, their hands are already so fucking red they'll never even notice.
An Iraqi girl screams after her parents were killed when U.S. Soldiers fired on their car during a dusk patrol January 18, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq. The car held an Iraqi family of seven of which the mother and father were killed.
Photographer Chris Hondros
Agency: Getty Images
Photo Date: JANUARY 18
Lastly, you can read Rick Perlstein's new article, Eve of Destruction, in the Village Voice, but only if you're in for a bit of a downer:
It shows up in the tautological narcissism of Bush's National Security Strategy document, which actually uses the phrase "the best defense is a good offense," and artfully constructs a vision in which whatever the United States does to preserve its interest is always already "peaceful," even when it requires war, is always already "democratic," even when it requires installing governments by fiat, is always already selfless, even as it establishes only two categories of states, those who cooperate and those who do not, in a situation of crisis defined unilaterally and whose time horizon stretches to infinity.
...The next four years? Anticipate another possible terrorist attack, certainly. Tommy Thompson, leaving his post as secretary of Health and Human Services, used his newfound freedom to wonder aloud why his bosses hadn't done anything to prevent an attack on "our food supply, because it's so easy to do." The EPA said an attack on any of 123 chemical plants would threaten over a million people—then the Department of Homeland Security took over the job, changed the measurements, and found that only two would do that. The chemical industry gives a hell of a lot of money to the Republicans.
Horray. God Bless our troops in harms way and God HELP this country. more...
Here we stand, at the dawn of a new Bush Era. The country is in shambles, our economy is getting fucked over by the Shrub and hundreds of thousands(perhaps millions?) have died in Iraq, though we've not found a single WMD. So, what do the American people, a not-quite-majority of who re-elected this nut, think of where we're going? Well, perhaps this CBS/NYTimes poll has the answer:
Fifty-eight percent of Americans say their outlook on a second Bush term is generally optimistic – a low number when compared to Mr. Bush's approval rating before his first term or Bill Clinton's before his second. At the same time, 56 percent say the country is on the wrong track, versus 39 percent who say it is on the right track.
Looking four years down the line, most Americans see very little changing, despite the ambitious agenda Mr. Bush is laying out for his second term.
Most expect they will be as safe from terror at the end of a second Bush term as they are today, but not safer. They think the economy and education system will be the same, but not better.
Despite Mr. Bush's focus on tax cuts, 41 percent of Americans say their taxes will be higher in four years, while just 9 percent say their taxes will be lower; 47 percent expect their taxes to be the same.
While Mr. Bush has a stated goal of cutting the national deficit in half, two-thirds of Americans expect the deficit to be higher after four years.
A slight plurality of Americans, 38 percent, say there will be fewer U.S. troops in Iraq by the end of a second Bush term. But 30 percent say there will be more, and 28 percent say the number will be the same.
As for the most ambitious and controversial item on Mr. Bush's agenda – overhauling Social Security - Americans expect to see big changes by 2008. But 50 percent say Mr. Bush's call for private retirement savings accounts is a bad idea, versus 45 percent who say it's a good idea.
Perhaps best is the last part, where a pure majority of American's feel that Mr. Bush's biggest issue, Social Security reform, is a terrible idea. Of course, don't expect him to take notice of that fact. He'll never have any idea of what the "average American" thinks, from inside that little bubble of his. Moving on...
Apparently foreigners continue to hate America, as shown by this poll:
A poll of 21 countries published yesterday - reflecting opinion in Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia and Europe - showed that a clear majority have grave fears about the next four years.
Fifty-eight per cent of the 22,000 who took part in the poll, commissioned by the BBC World Service, said they expected Mr Bush to have a negative impact on peace and security, compared with only 26% who considered him a positive force.
The survey also indicated for the first time that dislike of Mr Bush is translating into a dislike of Americans in general.
The numbers get worse by the day. As the election date passes, and things get worse in Iraq(we all know they will), perception will darken and eventually it won't be safe to travel abroad. Good thing I got my European vacation out of the way long ago.
Of course, we all know Condi Rice is moving up in the world. Thank God, because she certainly doesn't need to be looking out for our security anymore. I mean, could the memo have been any more plainly-worded? Anyway, big ups to Barbera Boxer for showing she's got some sense(as well as Mr. Kerry) and here's David Corn's excellent take on the situation, even if it's basically "old news."
This just in from the "ironic offings" department, check out what happened in Iraq, according to the LA Times:
An American contractor gunned down last month in Iraq had accused Iraqi Defense Ministry officials of corruption days before his death, according to a report in Thursday's Los Angeles Times. "Dale Stoffel, 43, was shot to death Dec. 8 shortly after leaving an Iraqi military base north of Baghdad, an attack attributed at the time to Iraqi insurgents. Also killed was a business associate, Joseph Wemple, 49," the LA Times reports. The killings came after Stoffel alerted senior U.S. officials in Washington "that he believed Iraqi Defense Ministry officials were part of a kickback scheme involving a multimillion-dollar contract awarded to his company."
Of course, a little more blood on the hands of Bush(or whoever ordered this execution) shouldn't matter. I mean, their hands are already so fucking red they'll never even notice.
An Iraqi girl screams after her parents were killed when U.S. Soldiers fired on their car during a dusk patrol January 18, 2005 in Tal Afar, Iraq. The car held an Iraqi family of seven of which the mother and father were killed.
Photographer Chris Hondros
Agency: Getty Images
Photo Date: JANUARY 18
Lastly, you can read Rick Perlstein's new article, Eve of Destruction, in the Village Voice, but only if you're in for a bit of a downer:
It shows up in the tautological narcissism of Bush's National Security Strategy document, which actually uses the phrase "the best defense is a good offense," and artfully constructs a vision in which whatever the United States does to preserve its interest is always already "peaceful," even when it requires war, is always already "democratic," even when it requires installing governments by fiat, is always already selfless, even as it establishes only two categories of states, those who cooperate and those who do not, in a situation of crisis defined unilaterally and whose time horizon stretches to infinity.
...The next four years? Anticipate another possible terrorist attack, certainly. Tommy Thompson, leaving his post as secretary of Health and Human Services, used his newfound freedom to wonder aloud why his bosses hadn't done anything to prevent an attack on "our food supply, because it's so easy to do." The EPA said an attack on any of 123 chemical plants would threaten over a million people—then the Department of Homeland Security took over the job, changed the measurements, and found that only two would do that. The chemical industry gives a hell of a lot of money to the Republicans.
Horray. God Bless our troops in harms way and God HELP this country. more...
11.29.2004
PSP Caveats (or How I Learned To Love the DS)
A friend of mine emailed me the other day, mentioning that he was rather excited about Sony's new portable, the PSP. I'm a Nintendo fanboy, but I've never written a console off until I had solid information about it and in most cases had actually played it. Most recently, I realized the N-Gage was a complete and utter waste of plastic/silicon. Mind you, Penny Arcade just the other day mentioned that they may have found a few games that play well on it, but it took them long enough.
Nintendo has just released it's newest piece of hardware, the DS. I've played the system. It's a fun piece of hardware with an interesting concept and wireless multiplayer. That's a start, but having Mario 64 as your flagship title and with intriguing titles like Feel The Magic to back it up, I know it's gonna be a good one in a few months. The DS has come out of the gate on fire. They're selling out everywhere(even at Target, where we had a surplus of units) and it benefits from a built in software library of over 500 titles(it plays Gameboy Advance carts).
Next up will be Sony and their fabled PSP. This isn't a gaming unit. It'll play music, play movies, play games, even give you a backrub. It's an all-in-one gaming-wonder machine. The size of it is comparable to the DS and the button configuration is relatively similar as well. However, this is where the comparisons end.
The DS runs on cartridges, has a rather long battery life(a proposed 10 hour limit from Nintendo, but many people insist it does much better) and an innovative way to play are all included. It seems the PSP may not even include a battery. I'm convinced this thing is a flop in the waiting and and here are my reasons (quoted from my email:
1: Battery Life
There has been nothing to disprove the reports that battery life of the unit is MAX about 7 hours. But here's the kicker, that's assuming the DVD-drive isn't running much. But if you play a game, watch a movie, whatever, you're GOING to run that drive, a lot, which seems to suck the battery down immensely. So you're looking at maybe 3-4 hours on one charge. AS WELL, it was also reported that the battery is so large it is seperate from the gaming unit and has to be strapped to your ARM (or stored in a pocket, but has to be close to the unit itself)
2: Games
Nintendo has so far garnered impressive third party support as well as their own impressive first party support. The PSP will get a LOT of games, but they'll
all be mostly ports of PS2 and PS1 games. Certainly, the DS will have lots of ports as well (2 so far, since Spiderman 2 is apparently much different from the console version) but Nintendo has a PROVEN track record with the kind of games that go on handhelds. That's part of the issue here. When you play a handheld, you want a game you can pick up/put down at ANY time. You shouldn't have to put a serious time investment into it. If you do, it has to be a fantastic game, probably unlike anything you can play on a console. Final Fantasy Tactics takes about 20mins a battle, but you can save/quit at any given time. Now, consider this, and think of whether or not a game like Jak & Daxter is playable in 10 minute increments? It's not feasible and it's just not really possible. This will be a major problem. I didn't even go into how MORE third parties are supporting Nintendo than Sony. Sony has their close bunch, but Square is developing a number of RPGs, EA is making a lot of games and several others. It should see third party support. You'll know more by February, when the gaming library flourishes.
3: Media
The DS runs on cartidges. Two advantages: They can't be scratched, ruined (easily) and they're relatively cheap to make. The PSP runs on UMD, Sony's new (proprietary) media format. It is a disc so it is scratched, easily, if jolted around(and we're using it in a PORTABLE gaming system!) and more expensive to make, at least at first. While the price may come down on UMDs, the shock capability is a BIG problem as I see it. Portable gaming systems are meant to be portable and tough. While the DS screen is obviously scratchable, as evidenced at target, so is any scren. But here's the big problem: what has the PSP got that the DS doesn't? It plays movies, eh? Well, how do you GET those movies? The UMD is a proprietary medium and sony has already said they're not planning to release any kit to allow you to make your own. So, any movie you want to watch, any music you want to listen to, well, you've gotta buy them. Since they're only being made by Sony, we'll assume the choices will
be limited and they won't exactly be cheap.
I think you can see why I'm a non-beleiver, but this next part will convince you that the PSP is perhaps the spawn of lucifer himself. Nintendo Now has put together a comprehensive review of exactly what the PSP claims to do and what it will actually be doing. It's a lengthy read, but important to anyone who wants to educate themselves on the coming gaming market. Check it out here and check below the break for some choice quotes:
1. "When will the Disc Read Errors Begin?"
We all know the truth about Sony's consoles. If you don't, you have been living in a cave. DRE's or "Disc Read Errors" have become synonymous with Sony's poorly built machines. Some people even think they design their systems like this ON PURPOSE. And I am one of them. It's an idea called "Planned Obscelescence" and it's something automobile manufacturers have been doing for years.
Here's a quote from a controversial interview given by Shinji Mikami. Mikami worked with Sony for almost a decade before he finally had the courage to speak out:
Quote:
"Shinji Mikami, producer of Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, strongly criticized Sony and Square in a recent radio interview in Japan. Mikami accused Sony of purposely designing their consoles to break easily so that gamers will have to buy a replacement. He also said that Sony's high sales figures are helped by the fact that many gamers, himself included, have had to buy a second PlayStation and PlayStation 2."
From there, Mikami went on to accuse Sony of doing the same thing with their line of PCs, Walkmans, and cell phones. He asked why no one has complained about this and said that it was almost like cheating and committing a crime. The radio DJ tried to interrupt Mikami and shift the conversation to another topic, but when Mikami was asked if he thought Sony's customers are foolish, he replied, "Yes."
...2. "90 Minute Battery Life/Overheating?"
Quote:
Gamespot brings us word that two industry watchers, PJ McNealy and Piper Jaffray & Co, are predicting a delay for the launch of the PSP. They cite numerous reasons including Sony's propensity for missing hardware launch dates. They take it further, however, and point out the more serious problems that they are having with the PSP including battery life (90 minutes) and heat.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/10/04/news_6109524.html
Just in case you don't know, PJ McNealy (from American Technology Research) and Piper Jaffray & Co are two of the most respected and well known Analyst Firms of their type. Their reputation rides on the truth of their information. However, these two industry analysts aren't the only ones who have raised serious concerns about the PSP battery life and how it WILL effect games.
Now, people have tried to counter this article by saying "That's old news." However, this piece was written only a few weeks ago. The 90 Minute Battery life was discovered by several writers observing the event (TGS). Here’s a link to a new article that raises some of the same concerns.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=5251
Here's some interesting comments made by Sony’s own Ken Kutaragi. His comments in this piece are quite telling to say the least.
Quote:
“A puzzle game will last longer, but Ridge Racer will probably be shorter than that," he told the site, referring to the battery life statistics released by SCE last week - which claimed four to six hours of battery while playing games.
"The figures quoted by SCE rely on playing with headphones, without using the wireless multiplayer capabilities of the device, and with screen brightness set in a specific range - leading to widespread speculation that using the full power of the system will bring the battery life down closer to the originally rumored two hour level."
Kutaragi's comments seem to confirm that games which use the features of the console more intensively will drain the battery life faster, and are backed up by the firm's efforts to restrict developers from using features such as data streaming from disc (as used in a large number of PS2 titles) due to their "high power consumption."
"The implication is clear, however, and Kutaragi's comments will undoubtedly be taken as a tacit admission that there is a problem with the PSP's battery life - and that the firm may be hoping to fix this in a later revision of the hardware."
Later Versions? Two Hour Battery life? It seems like we keep hearing the same thing over and over again. There is a term in the legal practice called “A Preponderance of Evidence.” This means that if the evidence is overwhelming then it must be true.
Well, are the overheating and the battery life complaints legitimate? I’ll let you, the readers decide.
...4. "Price: It Still Matters"
As it stands now the PSP is estimated to cost around $199 US. However, what about accessories and games? We all know that the average gamer will buy at least ONE game and the needed "Memory Stick."
Well, the "Value Pack Bundle" that includes Earphones, Carry Case and the Memory Stick will cost an estimated $249 US.
However, you still need at least one game, bringing your PSP launch day budget closer to $300. Either way, you'll also probably need a Screen Cover (if you buy the basic system) and an extra PSP Battery Pack, in case you plan on traveling, adding even more cost to your initial investment. The PSP Battery Pack will cost an estimated $44 (4800 Yen = around $45 and it is NOT included in the "Value Pack Bundle.")
When IGN.COM reported the price list for the PSP and it’s accessories, they deliberately left all of the prices for the system accessories in YEN, probably because they didn’t want the public to know that Sony was going to sell a battery for almost $50! They even went so far as to LIE about the battery saying that “the battery's user-removable, and cheap."
http://psp.ign.com/articles/560/560947p1.html
Wow, $50(!) for a battery pack? That’s not "cheap." That's like saying "Bend Over Consumer!!!"
Meanwhile, you can buy a Gameboy SP for $79 and a Nintendo DS for $149. Now, if you buy a game with your DS you still are below the $200 range, and as many have already predicted, the DS will see a price drop just around the time the PSP launches in the States. If Nintendo is really smart, they may even include a pack-in game, other than the MPH demo, that is. In my opinion, this would really give the consumers the VALUE they deserve.
...5. "The Truth about PSP , Mp3s, and Movies"
Many people still erroneously believe that the PSP will up seat the iPod as the new MP3 player of choice. (What a laugh)!
However, the reality is this. You need to store MP3's on a Memory Stick (sold separately). The Memory Stick that is planned for release with the system is nowhere near large enough to hold a decent amount of songs. And of course, it’s only compatible with the PSP. So if you already have a memory stick, you won’t be able to use it with your PSP.
Also, since the memory stick doubles as a “memory card,” gamers will have to store their music on the same device they store their game saves on, so anyone planning to use their PSP as an MP3 player will probably have to invest EVEN MORE MONEY on an extra memory stick if they want to hold a decent amount of songs. Again, a mere 128 megs is not a lot of space when it comes to MP3’s.
There have even been rumors that state that the audio quality of MP3’s on the PSP is "inferior" to those found on other MP3 players. Only time will tell if that’s true, but just considering that the average memory stick has only a tiny fraction of the storage space offered by a real MP3 player, audiophiles will probably have to make certain "sacrifices" if they want to store a decent amount of music - "Sacrifices" that could include cutting the bit rate on your mp3’s, which we all know reduces their quality.
But what about movies you say? Well as we all know, watching a movie on the PSP cuts its battery life to around two hours. What if your movie is longer than two hours? Well, tough luck. What if you want to play games AND watch a movie? Well again, tough luck. And would any sane person hold a handheld at arms length for two hours just to watch a film on a tiny screen? I wouldn’t even think about it.
...6. "Analysts Predict DOOM for PSP"
That's right I said PSP and NOT Nintendo DS. It doesn't matter what some fanboy thinks, here are the opinions of the people who matter. The one's whose decisions affect vast financial empires. They know the truth, and they aren't afraid to tell it.
Quote:
"ANALYSTS DECLARE 'NO REASON' TO BUY SONY PSP
New Nintendo console analysts' choice
By TAIGA URANAKA
Staff writer
The PlayStation Portable is the talk of the town after basking in the limelight at a recent game show. But despite all the hoopla, Sony Computer Entertainment Co.'s soon-to-debut portable game console is unlikely to loosen Nintendo Co.'s grip on the global market, according to game industry analysts. They say there is no compelling reason for gamers to buy the PSP. Its rival, the Nintendo DS, they say, offers eye-opening novelty.
Nintendo's new handheld console, which features a dual touch-sensitive screen, will go on sale in the US on Nov. 21 at $149.99 and on Dec. 2 in Japan for 15,000 yen. Sony has not announced the price or release date for the PSP. Analysts expect it to cost between 25,000 yen and 30,000 yen, putting it at disadvantage against the Nintendo DS.
Analysts say that while the PSP has razor-sharp screen resolution and stylish design, it is no match for the Nintendo DS in terms of uniqueness. It fails as an attractive game console, they say.
"With a dual touch-sensitive screen, voice recognition and wireless communication, the Nintendo DS has a load of new features," said Eiji Maeda, game analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd.
Nintendo says such features will allow users to experience new kinds of games and, more importantly, play intuitively, meaning they can forget about using a complicated control pad and use a stylus pen and their voice instead.
"Our intention was that anyone, regardless of age, gender or game experience, should be able to stand on the same starting line and enjoy playing games," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told a media preview in Tokyo earlier this week. "The single-minded pursuit by the game industry for ever-more complicated and time-consuming games will only serve to alienate potential users," he said.
...11. " 'PSP: The Portable You Play at Home?' or 'PSP: Don’t Leave Home WITH It.' PSP Design Issues”
Now, this part is just my opinion and I want to make that clear before I begin. However, many of you might agree with the points I am going to bring up. First, every time I see the PSP I can’t help but think how cheap and flimsy it looks. Like the entire machine is constructed from light weight plastics. This machine hardly looks durable and since we all know about Sony’s reputation for making shoddy products, it makes me wonder, will anyone WANT to leave home with their PSP?
I mean, that’s the purpose of a portable gaming device, gaming on the go. Yet, every time I look at the PSP, I cant help but think how easily it could break. How the "open face" design of the machine will leave it susceptible to serious damage. How putting this already large system in a carry case would only increase it’s size and decrease it’s portability.
I also wonder why the put the D-Pad and the Buttons so close to the screen. There will be many a thumb print griming up that 16x9 screen. And something tells me, replacing that screen WON’T be cheap.
(In contrast, replacing a GBA screen costs around $2 and you can do it yourself).
And then there are the nagging battery life issues. What is a gamer supposed to do? Carry an extra $50 battery pack around, just in case they want to play games after they watch a movie? The whole concept seems ridiculous to me. A portable is about rough and ready, PORTABLE gaming. Not sitting at home while your handheld is plugged into a wall. There is NO WAY the PSP could ever survive the brutal world of the average portable gamer.
PSP, don’t leave home WITH it.
Of course, the PSP won't be release in America until next year, but I'm eagerly awaiting that time, so I can see it crash and burn. Of course, at this same time, I'll be buying my own DS, since the library of games will really flourish around February. Touching is good. more...
Nintendo has just released it's newest piece of hardware, the DS. I've played the system. It's a fun piece of hardware with an interesting concept and wireless multiplayer. That's a start, but having Mario 64 as your flagship title and with intriguing titles like Feel The Magic to back it up, I know it's gonna be a good one in a few months. The DS has come out of the gate on fire. They're selling out everywhere(even at Target, where we had a surplus of units) and it benefits from a built in software library of over 500 titles(it plays Gameboy Advance carts).
Next up will be Sony and their fabled PSP. This isn't a gaming unit. It'll play music, play movies, play games, even give you a backrub. It's an all-in-one gaming-wonder machine. The size of it is comparable to the DS and the button configuration is relatively similar as well. However, this is where the comparisons end.
The DS runs on cartridges, has a rather long battery life(a proposed 10 hour limit from Nintendo, but many people insist it does much better) and an innovative way to play are all included. It seems the PSP may not even include a battery. I'm convinced this thing is a flop in the waiting and and here are my reasons (quoted from my email:
1: Battery Life
There has been nothing to disprove the reports that battery life of the unit is MAX about 7 hours. But here's the kicker, that's assuming the DVD-drive isn't running much. But if you play a game, watch a movie, whatever, you're GOING to run that drive, a lot, which seems to suck the battery down immensely. So you're looking at maybe 3-4 hours on one charge. AS WELL, it was also reported that the battery is so large it is seperate from the gaming unit and has to be strapped to your ARM (or stored in a pocket, but has to be close to the unit itself)
2: Games
Nintendo has so far garnered impressive third party support as well as their own impressive first party support. The PSP will get a LOT of games, but they'll
all be mostly ports of PS2 and PS1 games. Certainly, the DS will have lots of ports as well (2 so far, since Spiderman 2 is apparently much different from the console version) but Nintendo has a PROVEN track record with the kind of games that go on handhelds. That's part of the issue here. When you play a handheld, you want a game you can pick up/put down at ANY time. You shouldn't have to put a serious time investment into it. If you do, it has to be a fantastic game, probably unlike anything you can play on a console. Final Fantasy Tactics takes about 20mins a battle, but you can save/quit at any given time. Now, consider this, and think of whether or not a game like Jak & Daxter is playable in 10 minute increments? It's not feasible and it's just not really possible. This will be a major problem. I didn't even go into how MORE third parties are supporting Nintendo than Sony. Sony has their close bunch, but Square is developing a number of RPGs, EA is making a lot of games and several others. It should see third party support. You'll know more by February, when the gaming library flourishes.
3: Media
The DS runs on cartidges. Two advantages: They can't be scratched, ruined (easily) and they're relatively cheap to make. The PSP runs on UMD, Sony's new (proprietary) media format. It is a disc so it is scratched, easily, if jolted around(and we're using it in a PORTABLE gaming system!) and more expensive to make, at least at first. While the price may come down on UMDs, the shock capability is a BIG problem as I see it. Portable gaming systems are meant to be portable and tough. While the DS screen is obviously scratchable, as evidenced at target, so is any scren. But here's the big problem: what has the PSP got that the DS doesn't? It plays movies, eh? Well, how do you GET those movies? The UMD is a proprietary medium and sony has already said they're not planning to release any kit to allow you to make your own. So, any movie you want to watch, any music you want to listen to, well, you've gotta buy them. Since they're only being made by Sony, we'll assume the choices will
be limited and they won't exactly be cheap.
I think you can see why I'm a non-beleiver, but this next part will convince you that the PSP is perhaps the spawn of lucifer himself. Nintendo Now has put together a comprehensive review of exactly what the PSP claims to do and what it will actually be doing. It's a lengthy read, but important to anyone who wants to educate themselves on the coming gaming market. Check it out here and check below the break for some choice quotes:
1. "When will the Disc Read Errors Begin?"
We all know the truth about Sony's consoles. If you don't, you have been living in a cave. DRE's or "Disc Read Errors" have become synonymous with Sony's poorly built machines. Some people even think they design their systems like this ON PURPOSE. And I am one of them. It's an idea called "Planned Obscelescence" and it's something automobile manufacturers have been doing for years.
Here's a quote from a controversial interview given by Shinji Mikami. Mikami worked with Sony for almost a decade before he finally had the courage to speak out:
Quote:
"Shinji Mikami, producer of Resident Evil and Devil May Cry, strongly criticized Sony and Square in a recent radio interview in Japan. Mikami accused Sony of purposely designing their consoles to break easily so that gamers will have to buy a replacement. He also said that Sony's high sales figures are helped by the fact that many gamers, himself included, have had to buy a second PlayStation and PlayStation 2."
From there, Mikami went on to accuse Sony of doing the same thing with their line of PCs, Walkmans, and cell phones. He asked why no one has complained about this and said that it was almost like cheating and committing a crime. The radio DJ tried to interrupt Mikami and shift the conversation to another topic, but when Mikami was asked if he thought Sony's customers are foolish, he replied, "Yes."
...2. "90 Minute Battery Life/Overheating?"
Quote:
Gamespot brings us word that two industry watchers, PJ McNealy and Piper Jaffray & Co, are predicting a delay for the launch of the PSP. They cite numerous reasons including Sony's propensity for missing hardware launch dates. They take it further, however, and point out the more serious problems that they are having with the PSP including battery life (90 minutes) and heat.
http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/10/04/news_6109524.html
Just in case you don't know, PJ McNealy (from American Technology Research) and Piper Jaffray & Co are two of the most respected and well known Analyst Firms of their type. Their reputation rides on the truth of their information. However, these two industry analysts aren't the only ones who have raised serious concerns about the PSP battery life and how it WILL effect games.
Now, people have tried to counter this article by saying "That's old news." However, this piece was written only a few weeks ago. The 90 Minute Battery life was discovered by several writers observing the event (TGS). Here’s a link to a new article that raises some of the same concerns.
http://www.gamesindustry.biz/content_page.php?aid=5251
Here's some interesting comments made by Sony’s own Ken Kutaragi. His comments in this piece are quite telling to say the least.
Quote:
“A puzzle game will last longer, but Ridge Racer will probably be shorter than that," he told the site, referring to the battery life statistics released by SCE last week - which claimed four to six hours of battery while playing games.
"The figures quoted by SCE rely on playing with headphones, without using the wireless multiplayer capabilities of the device, and with screen brightness set in a specific range - leading to widespread speculation that using the full power of the system will bring the battery life down closer to the originally rumored two hour level."
Kutaragi's comments seem to confirm that games which use the features of the console more intensively will drain the battery life faster, and are backed up by the firm's efforts to restrict developers from using features such as data streaming from disc (as used in a large number of PS2 titles) due to their "high power consumption."
"The implication is clear, however, and Kutaragi's comments will undoubtedly be taken as a tacit admission that there is a problem with the PSP's battery life - and that the firm may be hoping to fix this in a later revision of the hardware."
Later Versions? Two Hour Battery life? It seems like we keep hearing the same thing over and over again. There is a term in the legal practice called “A Preponderance of Evidence.” This means that if the evidence is overwhelming then it must be true.
Well, are the overheating and the battery life complaints legitimate? I’ll let you, the readers decide.
...4. "Price: It Still Matters"
As it stands now the PSP is estimated to cost around $199 US. However, what about accessories and games? We all know that the average gamer will buy at least ONE game and the needed "Memory Stick."
Well, the "Value Pack Bundle" that includes Earphones, Carry Case and the Memory Stick will cost an estimated $249 US.
However, you still need at least one game, bringing your PSP launch day budget closer to $300. Either way, you'll also probably need a Screen Cover (if you buy the basic system) and an extra PSP Battery Pack, in case you plan on traveling, adding even more cost to your initial investment. The PSP Battery Pack will cost an estimated $44 (4800 Yen = around $45 and it is NOT included in the "Value Pack Bundle.")
When IGN.COM reported the price list for the PSP and it’s accessories, they deliberately left all of the prices for the system accessories in YEN, probably because they didn’t want the public to know that Sony was going to sell a battery for almost $50! They even went so far as to LIE about the battery saying that “the battery's user-removable, and cheap."
http://psp.ign.com/articles/560/560947p1.html
Wow, $50(!) for a battery pack? That’s not "cheap." That's like saying "Bend Over Consumer!!!"
Meanwhile, you can buy a Gameboy SP for $79 and a Nintendo DS for $149. Now, if you buy a game with your DS you still are below the $200 range, and as many have already predicted, the DS will see a price drop just around the time the PSP launches in the States. If Nintendo is really smart, they may even include a pack-in game, other than the MPH demo, that is. In my opinion, this would really give the consumers the VALUE they deserve.
...5. "The Truth about PSP , Mp3s, and Movies"
Many people still erroneously believe that the PSP will up seat the iPod as the new MP3 player of choice. (What a laugh)!
However, the reality is this. You need to store MP3's on a Memory Stick (sold separately). The Memory Stick that is planned for release with the system is nowhere near large enough to hold a decent amount of songs. And of course, it’s only compatible with the PSP. So if you already have a memory stick, you won’t be able to use it with your PSP.
Also, since the memory stick doubles as a “memory card,” gamers will have to store their music on the same device they store their game saves on, so anyone planning to use their PSP as an MP3 player will probably have to invest EVEN MORE MONEY on an extra memory stick if they want to hold a decent amount of songs. Again, a mere 128 megs is not a lot of space when it comes to MP3’s.
There have even been rumors that state that the audio quality of MP3’s on the PSP is "inferior" to those found on other MP3 players. Only time will tell if that’s true, but just considering that the average memory stick has only a tiny fraction of the storage space offered by a real MP3 player, audiophiles will probably have to make certain "sacrifices" if they want to store a decent amount of music - "Sacrifices" that could include cutting the bit rate on your mp3’s, which we all know reduces their quality.
But what about movies you say? Well as we all know, watching a movie on the PSP cuts its battery life to around two hours. What if your movie is longer than two hours? Well, tough luck. What if you want to play games AND watch a movie? Well again, tough luck. And would any sane person hold a handheld at arms length for two hours just to watch a film on a tiny screen? I wouldn’t even think about it.
...6. "Analysts Predict DOOM for PSP"
That's right I said PSP and NOT Nintendo DS. It doesn't matter what some fanboy thinks, here are the opinions of the people who matter. The one's whose decisions affect vast financial empires. They know the truth, and they aren't afraid to tell it.
Quote:
"ANALYSTS DECLARE 'NO REASON' TO BUY SONY PSP
New Nintendo console analysts' choice
By TAIGA URANAKA
Staff writer
The PlayStation Portable is the talk of the town after basking in the limelight at a recent game show. But despite all the hoopla, Sony Computer Entertainment Co.'s soon-to-debut portable game console is unlikely to loosen Nintendo Co.'s grip on the global market, according to game industry analysts. They say there is no compelling reason for gamers to buy the PSP. Its rival, the Nintendo DS, they say, offers eye-opening novelty.
Nintendo's new handheld console, which features a dual touch-sensitive screen, will go on sale in the US on Nov. 21 at $149.99 and on Dec. 2 in Japan for 15,000 yen. Sony has not announced the price or release date for the PSP. Analysts expect it to cost between 25,000 yen and 30,000 yen, putting it at disadvantage against the Nintendo DS.
Analysts say that while the PSP has razor-sharp screen resolution and stylish design, it is no match for the Nintendo DS in terms of uniqueness. It fails as an attractive game console, they say.
"With a dual touch-sensitive screen, voice recognition and wireless communication, the Nintendo DS has a load of new features," said Eiji Maeda, game analyst at Daiwa Institute of Research Ltd.
Nintendo says such features will allow users to experience new kinds of games and, more importantly, play intuitively, meaning they can forget about using a complicated control pad and use a stylus pen and their voice instead.
"Our intention was that anyone, regardless of age, gender or game experience, should be able to stand on the same starting line and enjoy playing games," Nintendo President Satoru Iwata told a media preview in Tokyo earlier this week. "The single-minded pursuit by the game industry for ever-more complicated and time-consuming games will only serve to alienate potential users," he said.
...11. " 'PSP: The Portable You Play at Home?' or 'PSP: Don’t Leave Home WITH It.' PSP Design Issues”
Now, this part is just my opinion and I want to make that clear before I begin. However, many of you might agree with the points I am going to bring up. First, every time I see the PSP I can’t help but think how cheap and flimsy it looks. Like the entire machine is constructed from light weight plastics. This machine hardly looks durable and since we all know about Sony’s reputation for making shoddy products, it makes me wonder, will anyone WANT to leave home with their PSP?
I mean, that’s the purpose of a portable gaming device, gaming on the go. Yet, every time I look at the PSP, I cant help but think how easily it could break. How the "open face" design of the machine will leave it susceptible to serious damage. How putting this already large system in a carry case would only increase it’s size and decrease it’s portability.
I also wonder why the put the D-Pad and the Buttons so close to the screen. There will be many a thumb print griming up that 16x9 screen. And something tells me, replacing that screen WON’T be cheap.
(In contrast, replacing a GBA screen costs around $2 and you can do it yourself).
And then there are the nagging battery life issues. What is a gamer supposed to do? Carry an extra $50 battery pack around, just in case they want to play games after they watch a movie? The whole concept seems ridiculous to me. A portable is about rough and ready, PORTABLE gaming. Not sitting at home while your handheld is plugged into a wall. There is NO WAY the PSP could ever survive the brutal world of the average portable gamer.
PSP, don’t leave home WITH it.
Of course, the PSP won't be release in America until next year, but I'm eagerly awaiting that time, so I can see it crash and burn. Of course, at this same time, I'll be buying my own DS, since the library of games will really flourish around February. Touching is good. more...
11.19.2004
Voting "Irregularities"
Some guys at UC Berkeley did some data crunching on the numbers in Florida from 2000 to 2004 and got some pretty interesting results. Their paper, The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections, comes to some pretty strong, well-founded conclusions. Here's what they have to say in their summary:
The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections Summary:
- Irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may
have awarded 130,000 excess votes or more to President George W.
Bush in Florida.
- Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic
voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases
in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004. This effect
cannot be explained by differences between counties in income,
number of voters, change in voter turnout, or size of
Hispanic/Latino population.
- In Broward County alone, President Bush appears to have received
approximately 72,000 excess votes.
- We can be 99.9% sure that these effects are not attributable to
chance.
Details:
Because many factors impact voting results, statistical tools are
necessary to see the effect of touch-screen voting. Multipleregression
analysis is a statistical technique widely used in the
social and physical sciences to distinguish the individual effects of
many variables.
This multiple-regression analysis takes account of the following
variables by county:
- number of voters
- median income
- Hispanic population
- change in voter turnout between 2000 and 2004
- support for President Bush in 2000 election
- support for Dole in 1996 election
When one controls for these factors, the association between electronic
voting and increased support for President Bush is impossible to
overlook. The data show with 99.0% certainty that a county’s use of
electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in
votes for President Bush.
The data used in this study come from CNN.com, the 2000 US Census, the
Florida Department of State, and the Verified Voting Foundation – all
publicly available sources. This study was carried out by a group of
doctoral students in the UC Berkeley sociology department in
collaboration with Professor Michael Hout, a member of the National
Academy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.
They even offer up the actual data in excel format, but that is only for the truly nerdy, as we're dealing with a lot of numbers.
Want more on this particular story? Hit up this thread at Slashdot for additional links and some well-thought out comments.
Of course, all of this isn't exactly news; it's just news with scientific backing. A number of articles just after the election pointed out the discrepancies between electronic voting states and exit polls, while exit polls in states without these e-voting problems remained on point. For example, check out this one from David Swanson:
An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.
Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.
The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls.
Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.
The curious result comes after the head of Diebold, which produces much of the nation’s electronic voting machines, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
An exit poll involves asking someone after they walk out of the election booth who they voted for. While not a guide for proving results, it can be a mechanism for ensuring voting accuracy and flagging potential fraud. Exit polls were recently used in Venezuela to ensure the vote was accurate and legitimate.
Perhaps more importantly, while exit polling is unreliable, the odds of President Bush having gaining an advantage from every exit poll in swing states is an extremely improbable coincidence.
In Florida, Bush led exit polling by CNN of more than 3 million voters by just 5355 votes. Yet he led by 326,000 in the end result. This morning, CNN changed their exit polling to favor Bush, saying that had overweighted African American voters.
In Wisconsin, where exit polls put Kerry up seven percent, Bush has a lead of one percent, an unexplained difference of eight percent.
In New Mexico, Kerry led Bush by 3.8 percent, yet Bush leads Kerry by 3 percent in actual reported voting.
In Minnesota, where a new law sharply restricts reporters’ access to polls, Kerry led 9.6 percent in exit polling. Actual voting counts found that Bush trailed by 5 percent, with a 5 percent discrepancy favoring Bush.
Ohio, which does have paper trail capability but does not mandate receipts, had exits showed Kerry and Bush in a dead heat; in the near-final results, Bush led by three percent.
Exit polls put Kerry up by 8 percent in Michigan; actual results show Bush trailing by just 3 percent.
Nevada, which also has electronic voting – though should have mandated paper trails, had a variance of 4.2 percent. Kerry led the exit polls by 1.2 percent, while Bush led reported votes by 3 percent.
Two states with paper trails for voting were within 0.5 percent margin of error.
New Hampshire, which has electronic voting but provides verified receipts, exit polling is within 0.1 percent of the actual vote. Kerry led by 3 percent in exit polling, and 2.9 percent in the actual vote.
Maine, the final state for which analysis of exit polling was conducted before the AP “resampled” their data, was in the Kerry column by 7.5 percent; the end result put Kerry up 8 percent, a variance of 0.5 percent. Maine has no electronic voting.
Kerry does not gain by any significant margin in actual voting in any state for which analysis has been conducted, RAW STORY found.
Exit polling accurately predicted the results in most states with very little error. Where there were discrepancies, they were significant in the +5 percent range, and always favored Bush.
Allegations of voter fraud is not new to President Bush. On November 12, 2000, the Washington Post ran an article suggesting anomalies in the hotly constested state of Florida.
Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official of Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and found that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000 votes. But when she checked the county’s Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000 … all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.
Early returns from Florida showed the Green Party candidate leading President Bush and Sen. Kerry in two Ohio counties. They later appeared corrected, but raised eyebrows among liberal bloggers.
I think we'd all agree it's rather convenient that questions of fraud exist around every election involving "President" Bush. I don't seem to recall any major questions about voter fraud in any of our other, recent major elections. Then again, it's probably just a computer glich, nothing more [cnn.com]:
Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.
Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.
State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.
Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result. (Full Ohio results)
The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error.
Strangely, we haven't heard much about Ohio since the "end" of things, despite the fact that the offical recount must be either ongoing or complete. Tom Paine seemed to think that Kerry actually would havewon in Ohio, if every vote had counted:
Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. In the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far there's no indication that Palast's hypothesis will be tested because only the provisional ballots are being counted.
Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .
Kerry won. Here are the facts.
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with—and therefore contaminated by—the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. [To read about the skewing of exit polls to conform to official results, click here .] Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
Whose Votes Are Discarded?
And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts.
We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks.
Scary stuff, guys. I just wish it weren't true. more...
The Effect of Electronic Voting Machines on Change in Support for Bush in the 2004 Florida Elections Summary:
- Irregularities associated with electronic voting machines may
have awarded 130,000 excess votes or more to President George W.
Bush in Florida.
- Compared to counties with paper ballots, counties with electronic
voting machines were significantly more likely to show increases
in support for President Bush between 2000 and 2004. This effect
cannot be explained by differences between counties in income,
number of voters, change in voter turnout, or size of
Hispanic/Latino population.
- In Broward County alone, President Bush appears to have received
approximately 72,000 excess votes.
- We can be 99.9% sure that these effects are not attributable to
chance.
Details:
Because many factors impact voting results, statistical tools are
necessary to see the effect of touch-screen voting. Multipleregression
analysis is a statistical technique widely used in the
social and physical sciences to distinguish the individual effects of
many variables.
This multiple-regression analysis takes account of the following
variables by county:
- number of voters
- median income
- Hispanic population
- change in voter turnout between 2000 and 2004
- support for President Bush in 2000 election
- support for Dole in 1996 election
When one controls for these factors, the association between electronic
voting and increased support for President Bush is impossible to
overlook. The data show with 99.0% certainty that a county’s use of
electronic voting is associated with a disproportionate increase in
votes for President Bush.
The data used in this study come from CNN.com, the 2000 US Census, the
Florida Department of State, and the Verified Voting Foundation – all
publicly available sources. This study was carried out by a group of
doctoral students in the UC Berkeley sociology department in
collaboration with Professor Michael Hout, a member of the National
Academy of Sciences and the UC Berkeley Survey Research Center.
They even offer up the actual data in excel format, but that is only for the truly nerdy, as we're dealing with a lot of numbers.
Want more on this particular story? Hit up this thread at Slashdot for additional links and some well-thought out comments.
Of course, all of this isn't exactly news; it's just news with scientific backing. A number of articles just after the election pointed out the discrepancies between electronic voting states and exit polls, while exit polls in states without these e-voting problems remained on point. For example, check out this one from David Swanson:
An analysis of the original AP exit polling, which showed Kerry with a tighter margin and leading in myriad states, raises serious questions about the authenticity of the popular vote in several key states, RAW STORY has learned.
Since the actual outcome of the votes have been called, AP has changed nearly all of their exit polling to tighten the margin. A reason has not been given.
The analysis, first conducted by a poster at the popular Democratic Underground, suggests possible voter fraud in states that do not have electronic voting receipts, and those that limit the media’s access to polls.
Two inquiries placed by RAW STORY with the media contact for the six-network exit polling consortium at NBC News has received no response.
The curious result comes after the head of Diebold, which produces much of the nation’s electronic voting machines, told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”
An exit poll involves asking someone after they walk out of the election booth who they voted for. While not a guide for proving results, it can be a mechanism for ensuring voting accuracy and flagging potential fraud. Exit polls were recently used in Venezuela to ensure the vote was accurate and legitimate.
Perhaps more importantly, while exit polling is unreliable, the odds of President Bush having gaining an advantage from every exit poll in swing states is an extremely improbable coincidence.
In Florida, Bush led exit polling by CNN of more than 3 million voters by just 5355 votes. Yet he led by 326,000 in the end result. This morning, CNN changed their exit polling to favor Bush, saying that had overweighted African American voters.
In Wisconsin, where exit polls put Kerry up seven percent, Bush has a lead of one percent, an unexplained difference of eight percent.
In New Mexico, Kerry led Bush by 3.8 percent, yet Bush leads Kerry by 3 percent in actual reported voting.
In Minnesota, where a new law sharply restricts reporters’ access to polls, Kerry led 9.6 percent in exit polling. Actual voting counts found that Bush trailed by 5 percent, with a 5 percent discrepancy favoring Bush.
Ohio, which does have paper trail capability but does not mandate receipts, had exits showed Kerry and Bush in a dead heat; in the near-final results, Bush led by three percent.
Exit polls put Kerry up by 8 percent in Michigan; actual results show Bush trailing by just 3 percent.
Nevada, which also has electronic voting – though should have mandated paper trails, had a variance of 4.2 percent. Kerry led the exit polls by 1.2 percent, while Bush led reported votes by 3 percent.
Two states with paper trails for voting were within 0.5 percent margin of error.
New Hampshire, which has electronic voting but provides verified receipts, exit polling is within 0.1 percent of the actual vote. Kerry led by 3 percent in exit polling, and 2.9 percent in the actual vote.
Maine, the final state for which analysis of exit polling was conducted before the AP “resampled” their data, was in the Kerry column by 7.5 percent; the end result put Kerry up 8 percent, a variance of 0.5 percent. Maine has no electronic voting.
Kerry does not gain by any significant margin in actual voting in any state for which analysis has been conducted, RAW STORY found.
Exit polling accurately predicted the results in most states with very little error. Where there were discrepancies, they were significant in the +5 percent range, and always favored Bush.
Allegations of voter fraud is not new to President Bush. On November 12, 2000, the Washington Post ran an article suggesting anomalies in the hotly constested state of Florida.
Something very strange happened on election night to Deborah Tannenbaum, a Democratic Party official of Volusia County. At 10 p.m., she called the county elections department and found that Al Gore was leading George W. Bush 83,000 votes to 62,000 votes. But when she checked the county’s Web site for an update half an hour later, she found a startling development: Gore’s count had dropped by 16,000 votes, while an obscure Socialist candidate had picked up 10,000 … all because of a single precinct with only 600 voters.
Early returns from Florida showed the Green Party candidate leading President Bush and Sen. Kerry in two Ohio counties. They later appeared corrected, but raised eyebrows among liberal bloggers.
I think we'd all agree it's rather convenient that questions of fraud exist around every election involving "President" Bush. I don't seem to recall any major questions about voter fraud in any of our other, recent major elections. Then again, it's probably just a computer glich, nothing more [cnn.com]:
Franklin County's unofficial results had Bush receiving 4,258 votes to Democrat John Kerry's 260 votes in a precinct in Gahanna. Records show only 638 voters cast ballots in that precinct.
Bush actually received 365 votes in the precinct, Matthew Damschroder, director of the Franklin County Board of Elections, told The Columbus Dispatch.
State and county election officials did not immediately respond to requests by The Associated Press for more details about the voting system and its vendor, and whether the error, if repeated elsewhere in Ohio, could have affected the outcome.
Bush won the state by more than 136,000 votes, according to unofficial results, and Kerry conceded the election on Wednesday after acknowledging that 155,000 provisional ballots yet to be counted in Ohio would not change the result. (Full Ohio results)
The Secretary of State's Office said Friday it could not revise Bush's total until the county reported the error.
Strangely, we haven't heard much about Ohio since the "end" of things, despite the fact that the offical recount must be either ongoing or complete. Tom Paine seemed to think that Kerry actually would havewon in Ohio, if every vote had counted:
Bush won Ohio by 136,483 votes. In the United States, about 3 percent of votes cast are voided—known as “spoilage” in election jargon—because the ballots cast are inconclusive. Drawing on what happened in Florida and studies of elections past, Palast argues that if Ohio’s discarded ballots were counted, Kerry would have won the state. Today, the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports there are a total of 247,672 votes not counted in Ohio, if you add the 92,672 discarded votes plus the 155,000 provisional ballots. So far there's no indication that Palast's hypothesis will be tested because only the provisional ballots are being counted.
Greg Palast, contributing editor to Harper's magazine, investigated the manipulation of the vote for BBC Television's Newsnight. The documentary, "Bush Family Fortunes," based on his New York Times bestseller, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy, has been released this month on DVD .
Kerry won. Here are the facts.
I know you don't want to hear it. You can't face one more hung chad. But I don't have a choice. As a journalist examining that messy sausage called American democracy, it's my job to tell you who got the most votes in the deciding states. Tuesday, in Ohio and New Mexico, it was John Kerry.
Most voters in Ohio thought they were voting for Kerry. At 1:05 a.m. Wednesday morning, CNN's exit poll showed Kerry beating Bush among Ohio women by 53 percent to 47 percent. The exit polls were later combined with—and therefore contaminated by—the tabulated results, ultimately becoming a mirror of the apparent actual vote. [To read about the skewing of exit polls to conform to official results, click here .] Kerry also defeated Bush among Ohio's male voters 51 percent to 49 percent. Unless a third gender voted in Ohio, Kerry took the state.
So what's going on here? Answer: the exit polls are accurate. Pollsters ask, "Who did you vote for?" Unfortunately, they don't ask the crucial, question, "Was your vote counted?" The voters don't know.
Here's why. Although the exit polls show that most voters in Ohio punched cards for Kerry-Edwards, thousands of these votes were simply not recorded. This was predictable and it was predicted. [See TomPaine.com, "An Election Spoiled Rotten," November 1.]
Once again, at the heart of the Ohio uncounted vote game are, I'm sorry to report, hanging chads and pregnant chads, plus some other ballot tricks old and new.
The election in Ohio was not decided by the voters but by something called "spoilage." Typically in the United States, about 3 percent of the vote is voided, just thrown away, not recorded. When the bobble-head boobs on the tube tell you Ohio or any state was won by 51 percent to 49 percent, don't you believe it ... it has never happened in the United States, because the total never reaches a neat 100 percent. The television totals simply subtract out the spoiled vote.
Whose Votes Are Discarded?
And not all votes spoil equally. Most of those votes, say every official report, come from African-American and minority precincts.
We saw this in Florida in 2000. Exit polls showed Gore with a plurality of at least 50,000, but it didn't match the official count. That's because the official, Secretary of State Katherine Harris, excluded 179,855 spoiled votes. In Florida, as in Ohio, most of these votes lost were cast on punch cards where the hole wasn't punched through completely—leaving a 'hanging chad,'—or was punched extra times. Whose cards were discarded? Expert statisticians investigating spoilage for the government calculated that 54 percent of the ballots thrown in the dumpster were cast by black folks.
Scary stuff, guys. I just wish it weren't true. more...
