I was surprised this statement from Donald Rumsfeld didn't get more press, so here it is (the source is here):

QUESTIONER: My name is Glenn Hutchins. Mr. Secretary, what exactly was the connection between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda?

Finally, I found a site where someone was smart enough to set up a simple, free, automated way to give/request gmail invites. I had several laying around for the past few week, but I donated them to this site this morning and they were snapped up right away, so I guess there is still demand for them.

Nevada just held their primary (side topic: why are we still having primaries after the conventions are over?) using Sequoia voting machines with printed paper trails. Nevada automatically recounts -- using the paper printout -- a small portion of precincts to check for abnormalities, and any full recount would be done using the paper printout.

There is a good demo of the machines here (Flash):

Heck, why not..

1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Turn to page 23.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

The book I grabbed is numbered by chapter, i.e. "1-1", "2-1", etc. Page 1-23 has no complete sentences, so here is the fifth sentence from page 2-23:

I created a chart which shows the results of the 2000 election in terms of popular vote and electoral vote. If you've heard of recent campaigning being done in "17 battleground states", this charts shows which states they are and why. It also shows that if the electoral college had been adjusted for the census prior to the 2000 election, Bush's victory would have widened by 7 electoral votes. It also shows which states had a la

Most people know hemp because they associate it with marijuana. Although they are related, hemp and marijuana plants are two different things. Hemp has so many practical uses I'm almost surprised that it doesn't offer to drive me to work. It can be used to make paper (instead of using trees). It can be used to make gasoline (instead of oil) that produces less pollution when burned. It can be used to make clothing. It contains all of the healthy essential fatty acids that we used to eat

It was announced today that manufacturers have run out of flu vaccines. If you trace back the storyline, a few days ago we heard that over 50,000 are expected to die from the flu this year in the worst flu season in 30 years. The second article also mentions that the flu vaccine produced this year doesn't protect against one of the flu strains n

I almost couldn't believe it when I heard in on NPR this afternoon. Pennsylvania Power and Light has entered into an agreement to sell three dams to environmental groups which will dismantle them. The action will give salmon new access to over 500 miles of river to inhabit.

In this day of corporate greed and scandals, its mighty nice to hear a story like this one.

I've been thinking recently -- is there any way for me to cut down my television bill? I pay about $70 month for satellite including HBO, Tivo, and High Definition channels. Tivo lets me be choosy about what I watch, and I've gotten very efficient at it. There are selected shows that I like, and those are the only ones I watch. I get HBO because several of those shows are on HBO (Six Feet Under, Sopranos, and now Carnivale).

An article on motherjones.com comments on the problem with the Bush administration's attempt to separate economic policy from social policy.

Select quotes:

"Driven by hollow political priorities, the Bush administration's disastrous economic policies are undermining our national ideals. "

According to an AP news report making the rounds this morning: "Nearly one in three doctors reports withholding information from patients about useful medical services that aren't covered by their health insurance companies, and the number may be on the rise, a study reports."

You may have heard of the recent lawsuit filed in California to ban Oreo cookies. While the tactics of bantransfat.com, the organization which filed the suit, may be extreme, their point is valid: Trans fats are bad.

By the way, they have dropped the lawsuit and acknowledged that it was done only for publicity, a move which I applaud.

You know those TV ads with two guys in nice business suits eating a fancy dinner and debating the morality of buying drugs because drugs fund terrorism? Well, in case you didn't know, they were paid for by your tax dollars, and yes, they are lies. The good news is that the ads have been pulled. They were sponsored by The Office of National Drug Control Policy, a executive branch government organization which also funds the series of "The A