PSoTD

TUESDAY, APRIL 24TH, 2004

After over 14 months of shadowing this filthy liar who pretends to be a journalist, Charen Watch has stopped and is unlikely ever to return.

Upon a little reflection it seems fair to say that no one should attempt this for more than a year. Mona Charen is grossly insulting to anyone with a brain and a minimal grounding in spiritual practices, and I stuck it out for 2 months more than I should have.

Cherie Blair lambasts Bush over human rights

CHERIE Blair has criticised the policies of the US President George W Bush, attacking his stance on terrorist prisoners and gay rights.

The Prime Minister's wife was condemned by supporters of the US President, after a speech to Harvard law students which contained a stinging rebuke to Bush, while on a lecture tour of the United States.

She attacked the manner in which the White House has dealt with the human rights of UK citizens detained at the US-run Camp X-Ray prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

Blair said the decision by the US Supreme Court, fiercely opposed by Bush's government, to give legal protection to two of the Britons detained at the camp was "profoundly important" and a "significant victory for human rights and the international rule of law".

...

The controversial speech was seen as flying in the face of long-held tradition that British political figures, and those close to them, do not criticise other countries during foreign visits.

Doing so just days before the US elections makes the intervention all the more embarrassing for Prime Minister Tony Blair as well as Bush.

In his strongest worded message yet against terrorism, and one in which he made specific mentions by name, Pope John Paul II condemned those who foment and inflict senseless violence in the name of Islam.

That was the first time the pope directly mentioned Islam by name, in reference to terrorists who misappropriate the name of their religion when in fact their more clear-thinking brothers shun violence.

There is however a marked difference between adherents of Islam and those of other religions. Muslims are more close-knit and predisposed to band together, for whatever reason, than those of other religious persuasions.

Christians, for instance, have the tendency to be divergent on many issues and find difficulty coming together even if invoked in the name of their religion.

And even in those exteremely rare instances when Christians can be united under one cause, it is virtually impossible to whip their emotions up to a degree that will make them march on command.

Muslims, on the other hand, are very passionate with their faith and can easily be aroused at the mere mention of Islam. Not that it is wrong. In fact it is very good. But it can also be very dangerous.

The reason for the danger is because there are many firebrands in Islam nowadays. Many of the firebrands have deeply-rooted causes that are valid. But their methods are violent. The world calls them terrorists.

Right now, the world is not sold on terrorism. Even in the Islamic world, there are many who frown, and rightly so, on such violent methods. Violence is simply against the very essence of that religion of peace.

But for how long will that distinction hold, given the inherent fraternal closeness of all Muslims? How long will level-headedness prevail before burning passions blur the distinctions and take over?

The message of the pope was not so much a condemnation of those who misappropriate Islam for their violent ends than as an entreaty to Islamic leaders, the clear thinkers so to speak, to start doing something.

The pope, in his ripe old age, is clearly gripped by a deep sense of foreboding that the world is heading on a path that will lead to a clash of religions unless a dramatic turnaround is achieved.

Under pressure from military voters and Republicans, Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell said Friday that he will ask a federal judge to extend the deadline for counting overseas ballots by one week.

Rendell told a news conference in Philadelphia that Republicans could produce only one voter -- out of 26,000 overseas military and civilian voters -- who failed to get the absentee ballot he requested.

Nonetheless, "Even if it's just one or two votes, their votes should be counted," Rendell said.

...

A Republican-financed federal lawsuit by two servicemen in Iraq and Kuwait filed Wednesday against Rendell and Secretary of State Pedro Cortes seeks a 15-day extension for their ballots' return.

...

A hearing on the federal lawsuit was scheduled for Friday before U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane, and Rendell said his lawyers would ask that ballots postmarked by Tuesday, Election Day, be counted until Nov. 9.

Rendell had initially resisted asking for an extension. Thousands of callers have jammed phone lines at the governor's office in recent days over the question.

Rendell had requested the extension during the primary because of a large number of challenges against nominating petitions that delayed the distribution of absentee ballots.

Reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at the start of the school day is a tradition that state Rep. Allan Egolf does not want to die, even if the courts say schools can't be forced into doing it.

So the Perry County lawmaker is pushing for a law that would require public school students to say the pledge or sing the national anthem. Then schools would have to note on report cards whether students participate.

"The main idea is we have to teach kids what the flag stands for and what it means," said Egolf, R-Landisburg, who is not seeking re-election. "If they don't learn this in school, where are they going to learn it?"

Egolf plans to seek House approval to attach his proposal to one of two school-related bills scheduled for a vote next month.

What will happen to the Republican Party if the younger Bush goes the same way as his father next Tuesday? Everything depends on how much he loses by, of course. But let's assume that the opinion polls are right and any defeat is marginal rather than catastrophic. And let's assume that the Republicans retain control of at least one chamber of Congress. What then?

Grover Norquist, a Republican who runs Americans for Tax Reform, has a blunt answer to the question: "Nothing." That looks optimistic. Several groups of people can be expected to get it in the neck. The first are the incompetent realists, which is shorthand for Donald Rumsfeld; had smug old Rummy not made so many mistakes on Iraq, Mr Bush would still be a shoo-in. The neo-conservatives will also be in the firing line for their dreamy depictions of Middle Eastern democracy, though they will surely reappear in another incarnation. If the polls show Mr Bush doing badly with, say, suburban women because of his "southern" stands on stem cells and gay marriage, a few murmurs may be heard even from libertarians. And just about everybody—including, probably, Mr Norquist—will blame Mr Bush's spending binge, known as "big-government conservatism".

So big-government conservatism would go.

Alleged Terror Tape Gives ABC Pause
News Division Delays Airing Video as FBI, CIA Evaluate

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer

It has all the makings of an incendiary story: a chilling pre-election videotape featuring a supposed member of al Qaeda, declaring in English that "blood will run red in the streets of America."

The problem, say ABC News executives, is that they can't determine whether the tape, obtained by a producer, involves a real threat -- or even the identity of the figure on it, a man wearing an ammunition belt and a headdress that obscures his face. The network enlisted the aid of the FBI and CIA but still can't authenticate the 75-minute videotape.

ABC reporter Brian Ross: "I'd love to have the exclusive, but first we'd like to get it right." (Donna Svennevik -- Abc)

"We're not quite there to broadcast something that would be quite frightening," investigative reporter Brian Ross said yesterday. "I'd love to have the exclusive, but first we'd like to get it right."

ABC was put in the awkward position of defending its insistence on fully checking out the story after the Drudge Report posted a huge online headline: "ABC News Holds Terror Warning Tape."

A network producer obtained the tape over the weekend from an intermediary in Pakistan -- who charged a $500 transportation fee -- and ABC's New York headquarters got a feed of the video Monday, network executives said. They said they sent copies to the FBI and CIA, which have been unable to identify the speaker -- who says he is an American and is brandishing automatic weapons -- after comparing his voice to those of known terrorists. ABC hired two linguists who concluded that English was not the speaker's native tongue. For example, he cited the country of Yemen as "the Yemen."

"The dilemma is that we have an individual identified only as 'Assam the American' -- we have no idea who that is," said Christopher Isham, ABC's chief of investigative projects. The unidentified man addresses his threats to "my fellow countrymen."

In weighing the evidence, ABC staffers are mindful of the problem at CBS News, which has apologized for rushing on the air with disputed documents about President Bush's National Guard service.

Ross and other ABC staffers say they believe that a Bush administration official leaked the story to Internet gossip Matt Drudge as a way of pressuring the network into airing the tape, which would heighten concerns about terrorism in the final week of the president's reelection campaign. They note that whoever gave the information to Drudge had a transcript of the tape.

One counterterrorism official said the tape shows the man "just ranting and raving." Another federal official with knowledge of the matter said that government agencies are pleased that ABC shared the tape and relieved that the network is not airing it while the video is still being evaluated. The CIA is examining the tape virtually day and night, this person said.

Phillip Carter, Military and Legal Affairs Writer: Kerry

I'm casting my vote as a referendum on the Bush national security policies since January 2001. When you pour billions into homeland security without achieving a significant net gain in security, I think there's a problem. When you mislead the country about our reasons for war in Iraq, and then fail to plan effectively for military and strategic victory, you simply don't get to keep your job. When you employ lawyers to eviscerate the rule of law and make America into the world's brigand instead of the world's leader, I don't think you should be allowed to keep your office. When you allow al-Qaida to mutate and evolve into a more lethal and survivable global terror network on your watch, you haven't done your job. Sen. Kerry hasn't fully shown that he will improve on all these fronts, but I do believe he will do better than President Bush.

A John Kerry administration would use federal subsidies to help spur broadband deployment while President Bush would continue his policy of deregulation to spread the technology, two think tank officials said Tuesday.

Thomas Lenard of the conservative Progress and Freedom Foundation and Robert Atkinson of the Progressive Policy Institute, which helped craft much of the Clinton administration policy, said broadband deployment policy is one of the few tech policy issues where Bush and Kerry differ.

Earlier this year, Bush called for universal and affordable broadband access for all Americans by 2007. Kerry has pushed for an equally aggressive broadband rollout but without a specific deadline.

"The Bush approach is that the best way to get greater broadband deployment is to reduce regulations, deregulate in areas where regulations have essentially provided disincentives to the deployment of broadband," Lenard said at a debate sponsored by the tech trade group CompTia. "Kerry believes the market can not do it alone, so you need to subsidize it."

Kerry is proposing a 10 percent tax credit for investments in current broadband technology for rural and inner city areas. He's proposing a 20 percent tax credit for next-generation broadband technologies, which the Massachusetts Democrat defines as speeds of more than 20 times today's networks.

According to the Kerry technology plan, the tax credits would cost $2 billion over five years and would be paid for by the estimated $30 billion the government will gross by auctioning off the spectrum left behind by broadcasters transitioning to digital television.

"This is one of those issues ... between two fundamentally differing approaches," Atkinson said. "What Bush is proposing is [by 2007] every single American can get low-speed broadband. I think that's emblematic of their approach. When Kerry is talking about broadband, he is talking about big broadband. He is talking about networks that are 10 to 100 times faster [than today] and setting that as a goal."

US government and businesses compete for Mideast linguists

WASHINGTON - A US government quest for Middle East linguists for the "war on terror" is failing to find enough recruits because of competition from private sector firms paying much more money for the same scarce skills.

The CIA, FBI, military and other agencies want the specialists to help thwart another attack like Sept 11 or to stabilise Iraq.

Highlighting the needs, the government says its backlog of tapes in languages linked to terror cases stands at over 123,000 hours, despite hundreds of new hires since 2001.

Multinationals in fields from oil to consumer goods covet the same skilled candidates to expand lucrative businesses in growing markets -- sometimes for twice the salary or at least US$10,000 ($14,600) to US$30,000 a year more.

"The money is absolutely a factor," said Jonathan Turley, a Middle East studies graduate student at Johns Hopkins' School of Advanced International Studies. "I know a lot of us here at school are definitely going to the private sector over the government for that reason."

Many US students graduate with debts of more than $250,000 from their college and graduate school education.

Current Events Poll
10/26
Who is the best bet for the 2008 GOP presidential nomination?

Every four years, "Saturday Night Live" elects its own presidential candidates, and this year's winners are - Will Forte and Seth Meyers.

Careful not to spell out their own political views, they say that "SNL" is an equal-opportunity offender, with the goal of being not only funny, but "fair" to both sides.

Whenever Howard Fineman strays into the truth and says something negative about Bush, Zeitgeist sniffers jump to the conclusion that Dubya is stinking up the joint so bad that Even Howard Fineman Has Turned on Him. That maybe there's hope for Howard after all.

Forget it. Fineman will never obtain a lasting clue about anything. His translucent shell of professional narcissism is impregnable.

...

Forgive me for shouting, but this stuff burns my waffles. It's the same junk we heard from Chris Matthews' crew and all the other clique queens in the press about Al Gore as Gore was wowing crowds and closing in for the kill in 2000.

Record Of 9 Women Governors On Line In Election

This year's struggle underscores how far the nation's political culture has moved in the past few decades -- and how far it has to go.

Nine women governors — a record — now hold office. But bruising terms, party politics and tough, well-funded competition in this fall's elections combine to make holding onto that high-point a challenge.

For women politicians and those who strive to see women equally represented in state capitols, Congress and the White House, this year's struggle underscores how far the nation's political culture has moved in the past few decades — and how far it has to go.

Are we seeing end of American eel?
Fewer are making storied migration, putting species' future in doubt

Tree leaves aren't the only things that are changing colors and hitting the road this month. October is when the American eel begins its migration, and this fall's trip could be a last hurrah of sorts for the mysterious species, at least on the lower Susquehanna River.

You might call it the greatest migration story never told, because scientists cannot explain key parts of the life cycle of this continent's only catadromous fish. Just the reverse of its distant cousin, the anadromous American shad, the eel spawns in saltwater and matures in freshwater.

But fewer and fewer eels are completing their kind's remarkable journey, and the species appears to be in big trouble. Some authorities say the eel is verging on a resource disaster on par with the Newfoundland cod fishery collapse.

While some experts say eels can live for 40 years, most biologists on the Chesapeake Bay's tributaries peg it at 24 years -- which is how long it has been since young eels, or elvers, were last captured in Maryland waters and released into our leg of the river.

The most recent adult eel sightings during electrofishing by Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologists came in Trout Run and Big Spring Creek, tributaries of Cumberland County's Conodoguinet Creek. The last eels were recorded in 2003 in Big Spring and could represent survivors of the 1980 stocking, now ready to return to the sea.

As for elvers, the local evidence is equally thin but just as bleak. At York Haven's dam -- whose fish ladder is the only one on the lower Susquehanna to specifically monitor eel traffic -- no elvers appeared during this spring's shad run (April through mid-June).


The principal puzzle for years was, where did the eels spawn? A Danish oceanographer, Johannes Schmidt, searched it out in 1920, finding thousands of larval eels drifting near weed clumps in the Sargasso Sea. Eels go to that relatively calm water, in the northern Caribbean-Bermuda region of the Atlantic, from the United States and Europe. Just how their offspring know which continent to which to migrate remains unexplained.

In its youth the eel is a hitchhiker, drifting, in larval form, north from the Sargasso with the Gulf Stream up the East Coast all the way to the North Atlantic. Each one somehow turns landward along the way at the stream or estuary from which its forebears came.

By now it has assumed the look of a tiny transparent or glass eel. After feeding along the coast, it turns opaque and distinct dark spots mark the eel's eyes. This is the elver stage. Less than 6 inches long, the elvers set off upstream.

Years later and just before leaving freshwater, the adult eel's eyes grow huge and round, enabling them to see better in the ocean's depths. They also undergo a change from yellow to green metallic to a bronze black sheen and, lastly, a shimmering silver. This provides better camouflage from ospreys and other open-water predators.

Sexually mature female eels carry 2 million or more eggs. After their three- to five-month return trip to the Sargasso, they spawn -- at depths of 6,000 feet -- then die.

More theories than answers:

How eels find their way 2,000 miles to the Sargasso is unknown, but one theory is they follow geoelectrical fields generated by ocean currents. Another is that the eel relies on smell, differences in salinity or temperature, positions of the sun and stars, or a mix of such mapping systems.

Once on their way, almost nothing will stop them. Silver eels have ceased feeding and will ignore watermen's baited traps. They are remarkably determined, able to surmount just about any obstacle by squirming over, around, through or under it. Protected from drying out by their mucous coating, eels can travel over land for short distances with the aid of just a heavy dew.

In 1989, scientists followed the eels to sea. Their research vessel had a computerized echo-sounding device on which they saw ghostly blips like those produced by eels in the lab. The blips also appeared at the center of the Sargasso on the nutrient-rich boundary between warm and cold water -- just where the experts predicted they would.

But were the blips really eels? The crew struggled to capture one, employing nets and baited traps. Every net came up empty, just like science's every effort to grasp the secrets of this slippery species of stream and sea.

Decline is well documented:

But there is no secret about the eel's demise. According to the National Marine Fisheries Service survey, the recreational harvest of eels in 2001 was about 11,000, roughly one-10th of the peak of 107,000 in 1982. Commercial landings slipped from a high in the mid-1970s of 3.5 million pounds to a low of 870,000 pounds in 2001.

Similar ratios are reflected in data from Lake Ontario, which had as many as 10 million eels two decades ago, but now holds only tens of thousands, according to Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources. The ministry says Ontario's commercial eel harvest peaked at more than 500,000 pounds in 1978. Last year's take was a fraction of that, or 30,000 pounds.

Ontario officials blame the eel's plight on overharvesting, migration barriers, climate conditions and hydro-dam turbines. Monitoring of St. Lawrence River hydro dams reveals that 46 percent of adult eels exit the turbines dead.

Fish ladders in the seaway, such as those at towering Conowingo Dam on the lower Susquehanna, were built to boost shad and other herring, not to give the elvers a lift.

Most herring are midwater forms not associating with bottom structure. Hence, they can be easily corralled into fish lifts or elevators for safe passage. The eel, by contrast, is a bottom hugger and tends to travel the edges, not the main channel. Therefore, he is far less likely to show up in a fish elevator.

Even where there are so-called eel ladders on the St. Lawrence, the elvers' springtime upstream migration has fallen from 25,000 a day in the early 1980s to about 100 a day.

European eels are in decline for the same reasons as North America's, plus the introduction of parasitic swim-bladder nematodes in the 1980s by imported Asian eels. Since eels cannot be bred in captivity, Europeans turned to the largely untapped U.S. eel fishery to sate their appetite.

When the French-born chef Alain Ducasse opened his eponymous restaurant atop the Essex House in New York four years ago, with dinner starting at $145 per person without wine, it was the price equivalent of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier.

Ducasse's restaurant instantly became the most expensive in town, and even the inhabitants of a city in which excess is as natural as jaywalking were shocked at the prices and outraged by his audacity. People whined, moaned and complained about the high prices, but, perhaps inevitably, gourmets and expense accounters alike were drawn to the place, if for no other reason than to determine if any food was worth those prices.

Despite a rocky start, on the strength of its food, service and, bluntly, snob appeal, today it is one of the city's premier power dining spots. The restaurant did away with some of the more irritating flourishes that had caused sniggers among the congnoscenti when it first opened, such as its ostentatious choice of 20 fountain pens with which to sign the bill, the hand-snipped tea leaves and the obscure cutlery. What else changed? Oh yes, the price for a meal is now $150, before wine or a tip. (The tasting menu starts at $225.) Imagine how much it would be if you tacked on a $2,500 bottle of 1982 Chateau Margaux.

Nevertheless, Ducasse's position of being the most expensive restaurant in New York--if not the United States--was toppled in February with the opening of Masa in the Time Warner Center. Chef Masa Takayama was the owner of tiny, exquisite Ginza Sushiko in Los Angeles, which for years was the most expensive restaurant in town, with meals costing over $600 for two. Takayama closed Ginza Sushiki to open Masa where tasting menus start at $300 per person at the 26-seat restaurant. Drinks, of course, are extra.

Charging an outrageous price for a meal is one guaranteed way to garner media attention. When New York's DB Bistro Moderne debuted its foie gras burger in 2001 for $29, it made national headlines and spurned a local burger war. The Old Homestead Steakhouse struck back with a $41 Kobe beef burger, but DB Bistro Moderne eventually won with its $50 burger, made with sirloin steak, a filling of boned short ribs braised in red wine, foie gras, and preserved black truffles. The war spurred even swanky Le Cirque 2000 to unveil its version of a gourmet burger.

PATRIOT NEEDED -- TO PROVIDE DETAILS ON THE PENTAGON'S PLAN TO INCREASE THE PERIOD OF TIME THAT RESERVISTS CAN BE ORDERED ONTO ACTIVE DUTY

SFTT has learned of this plan from an unimpeachable & vetted source, but desires to obtain more details about this new variation of the "backdoor draft." The plan is largely complete, and is set to be announced after the election. Please reply to here. All responses will be handled with max attention to maintaining confidentiality for source(s).

When Will Americans Know Which Candidate Is Elected as President?

· Wednesday, November 3rd - 59%
· Between November 4th and November 10th - 15%
· Between November 11th and December 1st - 7%
· Later than December 1st But Before January 20th, 2005 - 16%
· After January 20th - 1%

Of those involved in a committed relationship, who is very satisfied with their relationship?

Republicans — 87 percent; Democrats — 76 percent

Who is very satisfied with their sex life?
Republicans — 56 percent; Democrats — 47 percent

The poll analysis also reveals who has worn something sexy to enhance their sex life:
Republicans — 72 percent; Democrats — 62 percent

When asked whether they had ever faked an orgasm, more Democrats (33 percent) than Republicans (26 percent) said they had.

Among the factors that impact the survey results is that more men identify themselves as Republicans and men are more likely to say they are sexually satisfied and enjoy sex "a great deal." Also, Democrats are more likely to be women; and the poll results show that women are more likely to fake orgasms.

George Bush and Dick Cheney should just shut-up when it comes to the subject of lawsuits. They are in the White House today because they filed and won a lawsuit in 2000 for Florida's electoral votes.

Iraqi militants who kidnapped and threatened to kill an Australian journalist "Googled" his name on the internet to check his work before releasing him unharmed.

John Martinkus, a veteran freelancer who has covered conflicts from East Timor to Iraq, was released a day after he was taken hostage by four Sunni militants and ex-Iraqi army officers.

Mr Martinkus was filming a report for SBS's Dateline program and was preparing to leave Iraq when he was grabbed about 5pm (AEST) on Saturday outside a hotel popular with foreign correspondents.

SBS executive producer Mike Carey said the journalist's captors had investigated his background online and saw he was harmless.

"They Googled him, they checked him out on a popular search engine and got onto his own website or his publisher's website and saw he was a writer and journalist," Mr Carey told AAP.

US : US President 2004
Monday, 8 November 2004

Bookmaker Betting Exchange

George W Bush 4/7
John Kerry 8/5

Domestic issues took precedence on Tuesday in the US Presidential election as both candidates sought to rally Americans to their side.

With polls suggesting a tight race and just two weeks to Election Day, John Kerry also made a special appeal to undecided voters yesterday - urging them now is the time to decide.

It would appear the Democratic candidate is in need of all the help he can get right now, if the latest odds on the US Presidential race are to be believed.

Although the majority of firms are standing firm by their 5/4 quote on Kerry becoming the next President, this is not the situation at William Hill.

Hills reported earlier this week that George Bush has been cut from 4/7 to 1/2 to win the and have lengthened his opponent, John Kerry, from 5/4 to 6/4.

Interestingly Bush campaigned on Tuesday in Florida for the second time in three days and will do so again at the weekend. This obviously shows how important the President views the state.

However, bluesq and Ladbrokes make Bush a clear favourite at 8/13 over John Kerry at 11/8 to win Florida - suggesting the President need not be worried about his chances there.

Meanwhile, Kerry has spent his time recently campaigning in Pennsylvania, then Ohio and across to Iowa - all states in which he has a far better chance of prevailing according to the odds layers.

New "Storm Stories" Election Special Tells Story Of How The Second City Got Its First Female Mayor And How Snow Proved To Be One Of Her Greatest Allies

As the snow began to fall over Chicago on New Year's Eve in 1979, none could know that it would be one of the determining factors in the mayoral election that would crown the city's first female mayor. By morning, nearly a foot of snow was on the ground, announcing a winter that would paralyze the city and topple a powerful political machine.

On October 24, at 8:30 P.M. (ET/PT), with Election Day around the corner, The Weather Channel takes you back to look at how extreme weather conditions combined with a series of questionable decisions to alter the political climate of one of America's great cities, all in a special premiere episode of Storm Stories entitled "'79 Election Blizzard."

DES MOINES, IA—Airline passengers flying up to 20,000 feet above Des Moines, Iowa will have no doubt about one farmer's support for Sen. John Kerry's bid for U.S. president.

Mark McClain recently plowed giant letters spelling out "KERRY" into the rich soil of his soybean fields, which are directly adjacent to Des Moines International Airport. McClain is an Iowa farmer and a veteran Northwest Airlines pilot. He also leads the Northwest pilots' group of the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA).

"Nearly 88,000 airline passengers will fly out of Des Moines this month and I want them to know Sen. Kerry is the only candidate committed to the airline industry that they depend on when traveling for business or pleasure," says McClain. McClain's letters spelling out "KERRY" are more than a half-mile wide and stretch nearly two football fields tall.

Cod stocks in Europe's northern waters are on the verge of extinction, scientists said on Monday, calling for a blanket ban on fishing in 2005.

In an annual report, the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea said hefty cuts in cod catches were not enough to stop overfishing and that fishing grounds should be shut in certain areas.

"There is still no clear sign that cod stocks in the North Sea, Irish Sea and west of Scotland are
making a recovery," ICES General Secretary David Griffith said in a statement.

"A further problem that scientists face is substantial under-reporting of catches of cod which makes it difficult to get a true picture of the state of these stocks."

I sympathize. I even agree. I also realize that human beings just don't work that way, and that's the problem with almost any environmental policy - if it's dependent on human beings choosing to protect the environment versus protect their economic condition, they are going to pick their economic condition, even if they understand it's for a very short term period of time. Why? Because they know it's going to happen, anyways, because they know the same thing about the rest of human nature.

What needs to happen is some sort of financial disincentive, perhaps the cigarette tax type of arrangement. Tax cod products through the roof. Raise the price through the roof. Use government tax policy to hamper the industry. The only way you're going to get draconian cuts on the cod population is to cut demand to a point where catching cod is just not worth the cost.

An Old Order Amish woman from Leacock Township has registered and plans to vote for her first president next month.

The parents of the 24-year-old woman have decided that the entire family will vote.

Several Old Order Mennonite women, all senior citizens, registered to vote at last month's West Lampeter Fair. Someone had told them exactly what to do; they quickly filled out the forms.

Old Order Amish and Mennonite women voting in a presidential election? Not ordinarily. But this is not an ordinary election. Observers agree that more Amish and Mennonite men and women have registered to vote than in recent nationwide elections.

Chet Beiler, the former county GOP chairman who led a voter registration drive among the Amish, says at least 2,000 additional Old Order Amish registered to vote.

...

Church members in general, especially conservative Christian church members, have signed up to vote in unusual numbers in a closely contested race between President George W. Bush and Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry.

That has happened for a reason. The Republican Party actively has promoted registration of church members as a key part of its overall registration drive.

Amish leaders worry that a media spotlight shining on them during this election could cast negative shadows.

One potential repercussion is suppression of the vote: TV cameras set to photograph Amish at polling places on Nov. 2 may discourage some voters.

Among Kerry's new supporters were five papers that had backed Bush in 2000: the Bradenton Herald in Florida, the Daily Camera in Boulder, Colorado, the Columbia Tribune in Missouri, and the Daily-Herald in Arlington Heights, Ill., and Muskegon (MI) Chronicle.

Two other papers that backed Bush in 2000 announced they would not pick either candidate this year: the Tampa Tribune and the Winston-Salem (NC) Journal.

In supporting Bush, The Indianapolis Star nevertheless called both candidates "unsatisfying" and The Chicago Tribune also seemed a bit torn: "There is much the current president could have done differently over the last four years. There are lessons he needs to have learned. And there are reasons--apart from the global perils likely to dominate the next presidency--to recommend either of these two good candidates."

American Taxi Dispatch, Inc. will be providing transportation for senior citizens to and from suburban polling places on November 2 for only one dollar each way.

American Taxi's one-of-a-kind program was set up to help senior citizens get to and from their local polling place on Election Day 2004 for a nominal fee. The cost of the taxi rides will be subsidized by the management of American Taxi Dispatch, Inc. so that cab drivers will receive full metered fares for each ride. Senior citizens, who would otherwise be unable to vote from lack of mobility or no available transportation, now are able to get a clean, comfortable ride to their local polling precinct.

This Election Day program is only available to senior citizens living in the suburbs American Taxi Dispatch, Inc. serves. The program will be available to seniors from 6AM until the polls close at 7PM.

Customers will be picked up at their polling place after they place a call to one of American Taxi's local customer service phone numbers and provide the address for the return trip to their place of residence. The return trip, as part of the election program, will cost senior citizens one dollar.

American Taxi Dispatch, Inc. has been serving the suburban Chicagoland area for more than 27 years.

The Bush administration on Friday proposed duties of up to 15 percent on imported Canadian hogs to address complaints by hog farmers in the United States that pigs in Canada are priced below cost.U.S. producers say the duties would force Canada to reduce its hog production or cut its subsidies to farms.

"The Canadian government needs to get out of the hog market," said Nick Giordano, a trade specialist with the National Pork Producers Council. "They are distorting the hog market."

Imports of Canadian hogs rose to 7.4 million last year, up from 5.7 million in 2002. Most of the hogs are young pigs imported for fattening at farms in Iowa and other Midwest states - several of which are battlegrounds in the presidential race.

The California Voter Foundation (CVF) today released the results of a statewide survey on the attitudes of infrequent voters and citizens eligible to vote but not registered. The first-of-its-kind survey sheds new light on the incentives and barriers to voting, along with the sources of information that influence people when they do vote.

With expectations for much higher than normal voter turnout in the November 2nd election, the survey results provide timely benefits as well, according to CVF President Kim Alexander.

"For election officials and others working to maximize voter participation, these survey results provide clear direction on the messages most likely to get infrequent voters to participate in the upcoming election, and on the messages that will motivate more nonvoters to
register," Alexander said, noting that there are 6.4 million Californians who are eligible but unregistered to vote.

The survey found that 28 percent of infrequent voters and 23 percent of those unregistered said they do not vote or do not register to vote because they are too busy.

And I just told the Chairman -- I call him the Chairman. You call him Chuck. (Laughter.) I said, I got a job for him over the next four years. He said, what's that? I said, we'll get those lawn mowers cranked up, there's a lot of grass on the South Lawn.

Poll: GIs, Families Trust Bush Over Kerry

When asked whom they would trust as commander in chief, people in military service and their families chose President Bush over Sen. John Kerry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, by almost a 3-to-1 margin.

Bush, who served in the Texas Air National Guard, was more trusted by 69 percent while 24 percent said they trusted Kerry more, according to the National Annenberg Election Survey released Friday.

Among all Americans, Bush has a narrower advantage on trust to be commander in chief, 50-41.

The military sample was far more likely to be Republican than Democratic, which could help explain the more favorable view of the president. Four in 10, 43 percent, of the military sample said they were Republicans, while 19 percent said Democrats and 27 percent independents.

The poll of 655 in the active military and their families was taken Sept. 22-Oct. 5 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Their answers were compared to those of 2,436 adults surveyed between Sept. 7-Oct. 3 with a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.

It hardly seems possible, but the Democrats stooped even lower yesterday in their contemptible abuse of Vice Pres ident Dick Cheney's daughter.

Both the veep and his wife, Lynne, reacted angrily to John Kerry's having pointedly noted in Wednesday's debate that their daughter Mary — who works for the campaign but keeps a low profile — is gay.

Now imagine this scenario, laid out by Internet blogger Edward Morrissey: What if Bush used "Julia Thorne, Kerry's ex-wife, to refute Kerry's insistence that he is a practicing Catholic [who] respects families?" A rhetorical firestorm would follow, of course.

...and the ticket was hurt by allegations that Ferraro's husband was guilty of tax fraud and that her son used illegal drugs.

The United States military is receiving the strongest support from a commander-in-chief in two decades.

Dr. Seuss' silly rhymes and kooky drawings have long appealed to children, but did you know Yertle the Turtle was modeled after Hitler? And that The Butter Battle Book was really a satire on the Cold War? The Political Dr. Seuss shows the activist side of Theodor Geisel—this "personable zealot," as friends called him—as he addressed anti-Semitism, environmentalism, materialism, and other "isms" in his beloved books. Airs on PBS October 26.

I am -- you know it's really interesting. I tell the people on the campaign trail, when I asked Laura to marry me, she said, "Fine, just so long as I never have to give a speech. "I said, "OK, you've got a deal. "Fortunately, she didn't hold me to that deal.

Chuck 10:23:46 PM
Last Question: what is most important thing u have learned from strong women in your life?

Brian 10:23:40 PM
Fluff question.

Brian 10:23:45 PM
What a waste to end the debate.