“This madness will not stop….”. Here's a pleasingly blunt essay which takes the radical position that everyone–not just Americans–have moral standing. (I think Jesus Christ… [The Leiter Reports: Editorials, News, Updates]

The essay brings up things we would rather not want to look at. Might does not make right. The Iraqi people did not attack us, nor want to. What moral code allows us to kill tens of thousands of them who have done nothing to us? There are people who now suggest we just drop a few nuclear bombs on them and leave. The sort of hubris that suggests we can simply go anywhere we want and do anything we chose, without fear of judgement or retribution, will be the cause of our fall some day. It has to every civilization that fell for the seduction of power for its own sake. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

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nice rant, and pointed too. not all rants are problematic, some are perfectly fine, interesting, and worth paying attention too, this is one of the better ones.

He's our science president, all right… [Pharyngula]

More about the research priorities of this Administration. Not a good legacy. [A Man with a Ph.D. - Richard Gayle's Weblog]

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could be. he certainly has done everything in his power to turn american science into part of the military industrial complex.

Takin' My Country Back. I don't know much about country music, so I can't tell if this song is any good, but I like the idea of it… And here's a one-minute remix of Bush's performance at the first debate. The remix is called “Hard Working George.” (Thanks, Mike O'Dell for the first link and John Driscoll, for the second.)… [Joho the Blog]

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it is good enough.

this is a very handy site covering all manner of professional and research codes of ethics.

Juris my diction crap. The smoking of Cuban cigars has been illegal in the US since the time of Kennedy – though the day before he signed the law into effect he did have Pierre Salinger buy up all the Petit Upmanns in Washington… [Ben Hammersley's Dangerous Precedent]

A new US Treasury ruling states that US citizens cannot consume Cuban goods anywhere in the world. Full stop. Travel abroad and smoke them there, and youâll still go to prison.

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the bush regime is crazy…..

Hersh: bullet in your back.

A chilling account of a recent talk by the New Yorker's Seymour Hersh, describes a phone call he received from a first lieutenant in Iraq. The lieutenant's platoon had been stationed outside a quite agricultural town for some time, near a granary. The granary owner had hired a bunch of guys to protect the grain; the soldiers and the guards got to know each other.

More details from UC Berkeley, where the talk was delivered.

[Mark Bernstein]

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this is not the way war is supposed to be fought…. it isn't about murder for body count… it is about holding territory… wait, i guess the war is over, that's what bush said, this must be about pacification or something, but this strategy… where you kill kids parents and peoples friends for the sake of bodycount, is not pacification, it only leads to more hate and terror.

Researchers Say They're Denied Access to E-Voting Records. Political-science professors say their attempts to analyze online voting have been hamstrung by organizations that have withheld data from elections that were held online. (Associated Press) [Chronicle.com - The Wired Campus]

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this is not surprising, not at all. suddenly public records are privatized?

a wsj reporter explains the situation to a friend in private email, it is mae public, she is sent on mandated vacation until after the election. welcome to censorship central. the letter is a must read.