One Pair Socks

Took forever to knit, but that's just me.

One pair socks, knitted with Caron Dazzleaire yarn. Or Wintuk. Pale, creamy color, on something like size 4 needles. 36 sts in the round at the ankle, and a little chevron texture design on the heel. I putzed around with the toe, and did one as a star toe, the other something out of Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting Without Tears.

First sock...oh, May? Second sock, cast on, knit, and finished in one weekend, during the same weekend my apartment (filled with boxes) ceased to be my apartment.

Multi-tasking good.

Still working on the blue cotton tank!

Bush Would've Gone In Anyway

I just listened to President George W. Bush say, "Knowing what I know today, we still would have gone on into Iraq" [referring to the WMDs we've failed to find], in response to a question from a reporter in today's Rose Garden press conference.

The President went on to explain that although Saddam may not have had WMDs, he had the capability to make them.

Every nation has the capability to *make* weapons of mass destruction. Maybe they have money. Or they know a guy who knows a guy. Or they have a chemist.

Blankets with smallpox were a very effective weapon of mass destruction during the settlement of North America. Does this mean every nation with doctors is a threat to the U.S.?


(Edited later to clean up quote after transcript available instead of just my memory.)

Permafrost melting in Alaska

Because the temperature has risen 4 C in the past 30 years.

Sea Engulfing Alaskan Village.

In the article, Shishmaref is referred to as the canary in the coal mine. Well, the canary is drowning.

Oh, and don't forget that wacky Florida!

Lost '02 Florida Vote Raises '04 Concern

"This shows that unless we do something now - or it may very well be too late - Florida is headed toward being the next Florida," said Lida Rodriguez-Taseff, a lawyer who is the chairwoman of the coalition. [That's the Miami-Dade Election Reform Coalition -- sid.]

Vote Counting in Riverside, CA

Fear of Fraud, by Paul Krugman.

It's election night, and early returns suggest trouble for the incumbent. Then, mysteriously, the vote count stops and observers from the challenger's campaign see employees of a voting-machine company, one wearing a badge that identifies him as a county official, typing instructions at computers with access to the vote-tabulating software.

When the count resumes, the incumbent pulls ahead. The challenger demands an investigation. But there are no ballots to recount, and election officials allied with the incumbent refuse to release data that could shed light on whether there was tampering with the electronic records.

Can't count the votes right, folks, if you can't see them. It's as simple as that.

Doctors Without Borders Leaves Afghanistan

Doctors Without Borders leaves Afghanistan

They've been there since 1980.

They've been there through the Soviet occupation.

They've been there through the mujahadeen resistance.

They've been there through the Taliban.

They've been there through the US's invasion and occupation.

And now, now, after all that, after the US has "freed" Afghanistan, it is so dangerous they can no longer stay.

After the US, it has become too dangerous.

Florida Loses Voting Records

Well, good job, Florida.

Florida Officials: Some voting records wiped out

The crashes occurred in May and November of 2003, erasing information from the September 2002 gubernatorial primaries and other elections, elections officials said Tuesday.

[...]

Last month, state officials said the touchscreen systems used by 11 counties had a bug that would make a manual recount impossible. Earlier this month, a newspaper study indicated touchscreen machines did not perform as well as those that scanned paper ballots.

BTW, officials didn't fess up, they were found out.

DNC

Great speeches, what I got to hear. Bill Clinton was really, really good, and I wish I'd heard Mr. Carter and Al Gore.

The New York Times has links to full transcripts.

Byrd vs. Bush

Lovely article about Senator Byrd at Salon.

Terror in the Skies, Again?

Terror in the Skies, Again?

Terrorists make a dry run on flight from east coast to L.A.

(Edited later to ask)

Or were they just 14 Syrian musicians?

(Edited later)

Looks like the cat's out of the bag: musicians it is.

Diagramming the Bush Dynasty

For those of you who think in pictures Cool. Well, icky, actually.


(If you don't watch http://www.livejournal.com/users/twistedchick, you should.)

What Is This 'Safe' Of Which You Speak?

Bush's Twisted Idea of 'Safer', by Juan Cole, who says, in a nutshell, it doesn't matter how many times Bush says we're safer, it's still a fib.

Among other things, he specifically argues that Afhganistan is becoming Europe's Columbia.

Who Knew What?

What Did Bush Know?And what did he think his intelligence agencies knew about Iraqi WMD?

What did the president know about Iraqi WMD—or, more to the point, what did he think (or what was he led to think) his intelligence agencies knew?

This is why the Senate Intelligence Committee wants the summary released. It's the same reason the 9/11 commission wanted the White House to release the president's daily intelligence briefing of Aug. 6, 2001 (the one headlined, "Bin Laden Determined To Strike in U.S."). They want to know what the president knew. Did he have reason to see Osama Bin Laden's attack coming—and, if so, should he have done something about it? Did he know about internal disputes over the evidence of Iraqi weapons programs—and, if so, should he have thought twice about going to war?

If all George W. Bush knew about the Iraqi threat was gleaned from a one-page summary that stated the case for WMD—and that did not even acknowledge the existence of a case for skepticism—that's important to know. It's important for citizens who want some insight on why we went to war. And it's important for the president, who may decide to read a longer document the next time there's trouble.

Emphasis added by me. *ahem*. Especially when that longer document is written at his request, expressly for him.

A National Intelligence Estimate is not an ordinary report. It marks the one occasion when the Central Intelligence Agency warrants its name, acting as a central entity that pulls together the assessments of all the myriad intelligence departments, noting where they agree and where they differ. Most NIEs are produced on an annual basis. Occasionally, the CIA is asked to produce what used to be called a "special" NIE. The 2002 estimate in question, titled "Iraq's Continuing Program for Weapons of Mass Destruction," was such a document. It was ordered so that the president could decide, in an informed manner, whether to go to war. The president is the main consumer of the NIE; it is written entirely for his benefit. To shrink the thing into a single page—to remove all distinctions between certainty and guesswork—is to evade the whole point.

*ahem* Emphasis, again, added by me.

In Their Language

I understand that many people feel that permitting marriage between gays is essentially a sin, but if we legislate against the right of gays to marry, then we should also be legislating against divorcees remarrying; since no man should be permitted to sunder what God has joined together, divorcees are still married and cannot remarry.

And what other sinners should be legislated against after that, if we keep gays and divorcees from marrying? Should those who engage in pre-marital sex be barred from the right to marry?

Leave each church to censure amongst their own congregations, and let those of us who belong to a different church or faith live by our own religious beliefs. Don't violate everyone's First Amendment rights and hold one church's ideas over all of us.

Even sinners have equal protection under the law.

An Instruction Manual, an Ultimate Authority

I read this today at Bartholomew's Notes On Religion:

But back to the topic in hand: Snyder points out that Moore is responsible for at least two falsehoods in his film. First, Moore accuses Bush of stealing the 2000 election, which even “liberal journalists” have conceded is untrue; and, second, Richard Clark has shown the accusations about the Saudi flights out of USA after 9/11 to have been false. But Snyder has a more devastating critique: he’s compared Moore to the Bible, and found the latter more reliable:

in order to know the truth about reality, all readers and viewers should have an instructional manual, an ultimate authority on whom they can rely. The Bible is the best, most reliable, most truthful, most moral, most beautiful, most factual, most rational, most logical, most historical, and most profound instructional manual on the face of this planet. By knowing, studying, and using the truth that it reports, you can know the truth about the comments, opinions, and value judgments of the people, books, articles, movies, videos, TV programs, and theater plays in your life and in your social and cultural environment.

All this made me think to ask was...can the Bible teach me how to program my VCR?