NPCT

On the night of September 25/26, 1983, USSR nuclear missle detection computers mistakenly announced an attack by the United States. Under these circumstances, the USSR was to launch a massive counterattack with all of its nuclear arsenal. It did not counterattack because Col. Stanislav Petrov did not order it. His judgement saved [...]

The AP is reporting that the House of Representatives has passed a bill to forbid federal courts from ruling on cases regarding the inclusion of the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance. This is beyond my comprehension for a number of reasons. First, the proponents of the bill talk about "destroying [...]

After the 2000 election, a lot of people were upset about the Electoral College. The primary arguments against it are:

It doesn’t necessarily reflect the popular vote
It widens the gap between two contenders
It makes it even harder for a third-party to contend

These are legitimate arguments, and I do think that we are in need of [...]

Remember how I’ve posted about anti-Bush types being thrown out and arrested for protesting at his speeches? Well, it turns out that the Secret Service has found a law to support their case. It’s not looking good for dissenting individuals in the US these days, I’m afraid. As always, Slate has the [...]

Unlike all of Bush’s recent speeches that have been given to vetted and cheering supporters, the people listening to his UN General Assembly address actually know the score. Slate (a perennial favorite around here) talks about how he gave a campaign speech anyway. Did you think we couldn’t possibly look any worse to [...]

Check out News Hounds, a website dedicated entirely to debunking the right-wing propaganda pushed by Fox News.

I didn’t see the airing, but apparently Jon Stewart of the Daily Show went on the O’Reilly Factor. The transcript is here. O’Reilly pulls some statistic out of his ass that 87% of viewers are intoxicated when they watch the Daily Show and that the target audience is full of "stoned slackers." [...]

When the Texas democrats skipped town (just like the Republicans had done ten years earlier) to avoid having a quorum on Tom De Lay’s out-of-cycle gerrymandering, everyone focused on the town-skipping and nobody paid attention to the issue itself. The result was ultimately large-scale redistricting across Texas in favor of the Republicans. No [...]

Robert Novak, Jon Stewart’s "Douchebag For Freedom" has said that Bush will pull out of Iraq after the election.

Slate has an article describing how the Bush administration has managed to change the case over the leaked CIA agent’s identity into a case against the journalists, rather than a case against the administration. The article makes the point that Bush is out-Nixon-ing Nixon, in that if the same tactics had been used against [...]

Will someone explain to me when it became illegal in the United States to express displeasure with the sitting administration? CNN is reporting that the mother of a soldier killed in Iraq was arrested at a campaign speech by Laura Bush. The woman wanted to ask the First Lady "Why the senators, the legislators, [...]

The scientific journal Nature has asked the two major party candidates fifteen questions relevant to scientific policy and has published their responses. Realistically, they don’t differ that much in their rhetoric. My position is that regardless of what he says, we know that Bush will manipulate scientific data to rationalize his policies and [...]

Ever wondered where everything was in Springfield? Well, here is the map for you…

Yahoo is reporting that a large explosion and mushroom cloud have been seen in North Korea. BBC is reporting this as well. Colin Powell has issued a statement that nothing indicates that it is a nuclear blast, but with a reported mushroom cloud diameter of approximately 2.5 miles, it is unclear to me [...]

Bush Campaign More Thought Out Than Iraq War

Sure, we all know the situation in Iraq is pretty miserable and likely to get worse. But how much worse, and what form will it all take? I highly recommend reading this report by the Royal Institute of International Affairs for a thorough assessment of the entire situation and how it impacts the [...]

Dick Cheney today said that the US will be attacked again if the voters elect John Kerry.

Slashdot pointed out a useful website for tracking the current prediction of the presidential and senatorial elections.

If you are an ignorant American like me, you hear about the ongoing conflict between Chechnya and Russia, but don’t have much of an idea as to what it is all about. The Russian authorities blame this latest terror attack on al Qaida and our own government uses it to look for allies in [...]

Wikipedia has a pair of interesting articles worth checking out: The 100 Greatest Britons and The 100 Worst Britons. There are seven people who appear on both lists. Somehow David Bowie made the greatest list at 29, beating out both Charles Dickens and King Arthur. Harry Potter, despite being fictional, managed to [...]