Unholy madness and evil. No Cthulu jokes here.

[elfs]

Oh, Gods. Think about this. Think about this very hard:

The Bush administration will delay major assaults on rebel-held cities in Iraq until after U.S. elections in November, say administration officials, mindful that large-scale military offensives could affect the U.S. presidential race."

Although American commanders in Iraq have been buoyed by recent successes in insurgent-held towns such as Samarra and Tall Afar, administration and Pentagon officials say they will not try to retake cities such as Fallujah and Ramadi -- where insurgents' grip is strongest and U.S. military casualties could be the greatest -- until after Americans vote in what is likely to be a close election.

"When this election's over, you'll see us move very vigorously," said one senior administration official involved in strategic planning, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Once you're past the election, it changes the political ramifications" of a large-scale offensive, the official said. "We're not on hold right now. We're just not as aggressive."

Oh, Gods. George W. Bush belongs in Hell if he believes that his re-election is more important than the lives of the young men and women under his command. But that's exactly what has happened. The insurgents are being given time to regroup, retrench, and rearm, because Bush doesn't want more casualty numbers coming out of Iraq.

From LA Times, registration required (user: ranger, passwd: lone, via BugMeNot).

Reuters reprints the story.

---

A lot of people were scratching their heads over Bush's sudden citing of the Dred Scott case during Kerry's debate. Why would a man with such a reputation for being ill-read in history be so specific? Well, now we know why: The Dred Scott case is a very common citation in anti-abortion circles. What Bush really said was, to those who know the terminology, "I will nominate Supreme Court justices who will overturn Roe v. Wade."

An interesting point, however. Most of the anti-abortion types are reading Dred Scott wrong. As one website puts it, "Dred Scott shows us two things: The mischief that 'activist' judges always do, and the fact that people are sometimes willing to resort to a Constitutional amendment to overturn a Supreme Court ruling." The funny thing is that Dred Scott is one of the most strict Constitutional rulings ever made: the 19th century Supremes ignored "popular sentiment" and went with a straight-from-the-text ruling on property rights.

---

Typical. Apparently, a WHO report on how much of our diet should be carbohydrates was modified prior to release to claim that there was no "upper limit" to the ratio between carbs and other components such as fat or protein. It now turns out that after the report was submitted to the WHO, the whole affair-- the summoning of scientists to a nutrition conference in Rome, the assemblage of the report, and everything else, was a sham paid for by the sugar industry.

Comments

[rapier.livejournal.com]

Well, they do have the stickers now. "I Voted!" or whatever. But yes, a formal intonation of your name and the fact that you voted, that would be a good tradition to bring back.

[wendor.livejournal.com]

They still do it in Idaho (or did as of about three years ago when I moved) and they do here in Nevada. (or at least some parts...with Nevada leading the nation in early voting, electronic voting, etc. it's becoming less and less common for people to vote in person at their regular polling place on election day. For example I'll probably be voting electronically right here at work sometime next week and they won't be doing the voice declarations for that)