"Do you think these swift boat ads are unfair to John Kerry?"

"Not really. There have been millions of terrible ads against my husband."

Between Arnold Schwarzenegger and George Pataki, their states are responsible for 35 percent of the abortions performed in the U.S. And yet you'll hear nary a peep of protest about this from the conservative Catholic League, a supposedly "non-partisan" organization that has been frothing in continuous outrage over John Kerry's pro-choice leanings.

[...]

The silence coming out of the Catholic League regarding the prominence of a bunch of heretical babykillers at the GOP Convention is simply deafening...

My concern is ... with the possibility that we will irreversibly change what it is to be human. Geneticists have tried to improve apples over the last 50 years, producing larger, prettier species that just aren't as tasty or as interesting as they used to be; it would be a tragedy if we did to humans what we've done to apples.

A carnival is a weekly showcase of good weblog writing, selected by the authors themselves (that's the vanity part). Each week, one of our crew will highlight a collection of interesting weblog articles in one convenient place, making it easy for everyone to find the good stuff.

One word caused the most stir.

A five-letter word that George W. Bush uttered 3,000 miles away, one week ago today, at a gathering of minority journalists.

A word that has since raised eyebrows across Indian country, and one that, almost immediately after leaving the president's lips, had Democrats licking theirs:

Given.

[...]

To many Native Americans -- and Democrats, alike -- the president's answer spoke volumes about what they see as his ignorance of Indian issues. And to many, the operative word in Bush's response was the verb "given."

When Edna Weddell, a Yankton Sioux tribal elder who gets around with a walker, tried to vote in South Dakota this month, a poll worker stopped her. She had to produce a photo ID first, she was told. Ms. Weddell's granddaughter pointed out that South Dakota law allows voters who do not have an ID with them to sign an affidavit instead, but the poll worker would not budge. Ms. Weddell was forced to retrieve her ID from home before she was allowed to vote.

Last year, after Indians had made the difference in Senator Johnson's election, the Republican-controlled State Legislature passed a new voter ID law that posed a particular hardship for Indians, who often do not have driver's licenses. They were assured that the new law would not present a problem, since it stated that any voter without ID "may complete an affidavit" instead. But many Indians were concerned that poll workers, who are often hostile to them, would ignore that provision.

That seems to be precisely what happened on June 1, and voting rights activists do not believe the mistakes in applying the law were accidental. As evidence, they have produced instructions used in Corson County on Election Day, apparently written by the Corson County auditor, saying: "Some voters are reporting that ID is not required. Please inform the voters that ID is in fact required." South Dakota Secretary of State Chris Nelson insists that county auditors were all properly trained on the new law. In Corson County, "the auditor chose to add some additional instructions," he says. "I don't know why."

Iranian Defense Minister Ali Shamkhani warned that Iran might launch a preemptive strike against US forces in the region to prevent an attack on its nuclear facilities.

"We will not sit (with arms folded) to wait for what others will do to us. Some military commanders in Iran are convinced that preventive operations which the Americans talk about are not their monopoly," Shamkhani told Al-Jazeera TV when asked if Iran would respond to an American attack on its nuclear facilities.

[…]

Shamkhani, who was asked about the possibility of an American or Israeli strike against Iran's atomic power plant in Bushehr, added: "We will consider any strike against our nuclear installations as an attack on Iran as a whole, and we will retaliate with all our strength.

We noticed a bear sleeping on the common lawn and wondered what was going on until we discovered that there were a lot of beer cans lying around.

Under the President, funding* for our veterans has more than doubled over the previous eight years.

* by nearly doubling the funding increase of the previous eight years

... veterans funding $36bn in 1994, $47bn in 2001, and is estimated at $65bn for 2005. So the "Bush increase" is estimated at $18bn, while the "Clinton increase" (from 1994 to 2001) was $11bn. Put another way:

In Bush's first three years funding for the Veterans Administration increased 27%. And if Bush's 2005 budget is approved, funding for his full four-year term will amount to an increase of 37.6%.

If passed, Amendment 36 would make Colorado the first state to allocate electoral votes proportionately according to the popular vote, rather than giving a winner all of the state's electoral votes.

[...]

Republican Gov. Bill Owens and state party chairman Ted Halaby have criticized the proposal, saying it would lessen the state's clout in presidential elections. They warn candidates will ignore the state and its nine electoral votes if the measure passes.

Julie Brown, campaign director for the Make Your Vote Count effort that supports the measure, dismissed their concerns. "It begs the question on which is more important -- a two-hour presidential stop at a tarmac at Denver International Airport or true representation by the voters."

Katy Atkinson, a spokeswoman for the opposing Coloradans Against a Really Stupid Idea, promised a challenge if the measure passes and is applied in this year's presidential race. The proposal's backers want it to take effect before Colorado's electoral votes are cast in December. "They are ripe for a court challenge on this," Atkinson said. "If this is a close race like the one four years ago, we could be thrown into a situation where we are the Florida of 2004. We'd be the laughing-stock of the country. All those Florida jokes would be applied to Colorado."

President George Bush will announce tomorrow that the US military will pull up to 100,000 troops out of Europe and Asia in the biggest redeployment since the end of the Cold War.

The plan will see a number of US bases in Germany closed down, and troops returned home or redeployed to Eastern Europe.

The redeployment - first reported by The Observer in February last year in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq - will be presented by Bush as a logical response to the war on terrorism when he addresses the 2.6 million-member Veterans of Foreign Wars at its annual convention in Cincinnati.

In February last year, however, when the proposal was first mooted, Pentagon officials presented the closure of the bases in Germany as punishment for Germany's refusal to back the war in Iraq. [My italics]

[…]

According to the Post, two-thirds of the reduction will come from Europe, most of them Army soldiers in Germany, and most will be reassigned to bases in the US.
Officials said exact details of the moves have not been finalised, but some of the troops from Germany and South Korea will be moved to Nato expansion countries in Eastern Europe.

But I just don't see it. When I travel the country, and I've been traveling a lot, there are thousands of people who come out and wave, and they are -- you know, they respect the presidency. Sometimes they like the president, but I have this -- I don't have a sense that there's a lot of anger.

KING: In view of that, do you think that it's fair, for the record, John Kerry's service record, to be an issue at all? I know that Senator McCain...

G. BUSH: You know, I think it is an issue, because he views it as honorable service, and so do I. I mean...

KING: Oh, so it is. But, I mean, Senator McCain has asked to be condemned, the attack on his service. What do you say to that?

G. BUSH: Well, I say they ought to get rid of all those 527s, independent expenditures that have flooded the airwaves.

There have been millions of dollars spent up until this point in time. I signed a law that I thought would get rid of those, and I called on the senator to -- let's just get anybody who feels like they got to run to not do so.

KING: Do you condemn the statements made about his...

G. BUSH: Well, I haven't seen the ad, but what I do condemn is these unregulated, soft-money expenditures by very wealthy people, and they've said some bad things about me. I guess they're saying bad things about him. And what I think we ought to do is not have them on the air. I think there ought to be full disclosure. The campaign funding law I signed I thought was going to get rid of that. But evidently the Federal Election Commission had a different view.

Former U.S. Sen. Chic Hecht of Nevada is a staunch Republican, but he thanks his lucky stars for Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.

On July 12, 1988, Hecht was attending a weekly Republican luncheon when a piece of apple lodged firmly in his throat.

Hecht stumbled out of the room, thinking he might vomit but not wanting to do it in front of his colleagues. Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., thumped his back, but Hecht quickly passed out in the hallway.

Just then, Kerry stepped off an elevator, rushed to Hecht's side and gave him the Heimlich maneuver -- four times.

[...]

"This man gave me my life," the 75-year-old Hecht said Thursday.

I couldn't get a job with CIA today. I am not qualified.
--Rep. Porter Goss, March 3, 2004, Washington, DC

"This is incredible that the Bush campaign has stooped so low and talked these three Cuban congressional members into telling straight-out lies," said Hialeah Mayor Raul Martinez, who is helping the Kerry campaign in Florida.

NEW YORK The lights of Empire State Building will dim for 15 minutes tonight in tribute to actress Fay Wray.

They both achieved international fame in the 1933 film classic King Kong, when the big ape appeared to climb the skyscraper with the actress in his hand.

Wray died in her sleep Sunday in her Manhattan apartment. She was 96.

Meanwhile in Miami, three Republican [state house] members -- Reps. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, his brother Mario and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen -- will charge [in a press conference later today] that Teresa Kerry's foundation has "connections" to and has helped finance "Fidel Castro's Internet network."

A Diaz-Balart spokeswoman would not elaborate, but she did say it involved the Heinz Endowments' financial ties to a group called the Tides Center and the Tides Foundation.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A chain of private California schools that taught immigrants there are 53 U.S. states and four branches of the U.S. government was ordered to stop handing out phony diplomas this week, state Attorney General Bill Lockyer said on Friday.

Authorities seized the assets of California Alternative High School and asked a judge to stop the company's 30 schools statewide from handing out "high school diplomas" to students dreaming of a better life through education, Lockyer said.

[...]

Students learned that Congress had two houses -- the Senate for Democrats and the House for Republicans; that the U.S. flag had not been updated to reflect the addition of Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico to the "original" 50 states; that the federal "administrative" branch oversees the Treasury Department; and that World War II occurred from 1938 to 1942.

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The Dutch Labour party wants to pass a law making unsolicited toe-licking an offence after police were unable to prosecute a would-be Casanova with a taste for female toes because he had committed no crime.

A police spokesman said on Friday a man had been detained after women sunning themselves in Rotterdam's parks and beaches claimed he would sneak up on them and begin to lick their toes.

"The officers had to let him go. Licking a stranger's toes is rather unusual but there is really nothing criminal about it," the spokesman said.

Dutch press reports said the man, who is about 35, had been licking the toes of strangers for about three years but was only recently caught by police.

Six independent forensic scientists, in a report to be filed in a Houston state court today, said that a crime laboratory official - because he either lacked basic knowledge of blood typing or gave false testimony - helped convict an innocent man of rape in 1987.

The panel concluded that crime laboratory officials might have offered "similarly false and scientifically unsound" reports and testimony in other cases, and it called for a comprehensive audit spanning decades to re-examine the results of a broad array of rudimentary tests on blood, semen and other bodily fluids.

Elizabeth A. Johnson, a former director of the DNA laboratory at the Harris County medical examiner's office in Houston, said the task would be daunting.

"A conservative number would probably be 5,000 to 10,000 cases," Dr. Johnson said. "If you add in hair, it's off the board."

[…]

A state audit of the crime laboratory, completed in December 2002, has found that DNA technicians there misinterpreted data, were poorly trained and kept shoddy records. In many cases, the technicians used up all available evidence, making it impossible for defense experts to refute or verify their results. Even the laboratory's building was a mess, with a leaky roof contaminating evidence.

The DNA unit was shut down soon afterward, and it remains closed.

[…]

"In Harris County," said William C. Thompson, a professor of criminology at the University of California, Irvine, who has followed the crime laboratory scandals closely, "defendants were prosecuted with flawed scientific evidence and defended by court-appointed lawyers who lacked the knowledge and resources to challenge it and complain about the injustice. Now that the scandal has come to light, the system is relying on the same inept, timid lawyers to make it right."

"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we," Bush said.
"They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."
No one in Bush's audience of military brass or Pentagon chiefs reacted.

"But the American people know this president speaks with clarity and conviction, and the terrorists know by his actions he means it," McClellan said.

• Slobodan Milosevic – Yugoslavia 1988-2000
  
• Augusto Pinochet Ugarte – Chile 1973-1990
  
• Jean-Claude ”Baby Doc” Duvalier – Haiti 1971-1986
  
• Charles Taylor – Liberia 1996-2003
  
• Alfredo Strossner – Paraguay 1954-1989 (who knew this Nazi loving old bastard was still alive?)
  
• Mengistu Haile Mariam – Ethiopia 1977-1991
  
• Chun Doo-hwan – South Korea 1980-1988
  
• Manuel Antonio Noriega – Panama 1981-1989
  
• Mullah Mohammed Omar – Afghanistan 1996-2001
  
• Thojib N.J. Suharto – Indonesia 1967-1998
  
• Moussa Traore – Mali 1968-1991
  
• Sitiveni Rabuka – Fiji 1997-2001
  
• Lennox Leslie Wongamu Sebe – Ciskei 1981-1990
  
• Efrain Rios Montt – Guatemala 1982-1983

What do you get when you cross a Unitarian Universalist with a Mormon missionary?

Someone who knocks on people's doors for no apparent reason.

“Oh my gawd, we’ve got to have an ‘Intelligence Czar.’”

“What will he do?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to have one.”

“How much will he cost?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to have one.”

“How will he relate to the existing intelligence structure?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to have one.”

“Who will he be answerable to?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to have one.”

“Wasn’t the Department of Homeland Security created to do what he’s supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to have one.”

“Wasn’t the National Security Council created to do what he’s supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to have one.”

“Isn’t the Director of Central Intelligence already supposed to do what he’s supposed to do?”

“I don’t know, but we’ve got to have one.”

“Shouldn’t we think this through first?”

“No time. Gotta do something.”