... Can a nation be founded on both Islam and democracy without compromising on human rights and equality?

A New Democracy, Enshrined in Faith

"It is the central focus of my life. America, under Bush, is a danger to the world. And I'm willing to put my money where my mouth is."

Soros's Deep Pockets vs. Bush

But let me not join the summarizers. Invest a half-hour in reading this moving exposition of the noble goal of American foreign policy.

i agree... people should read the speech. it's good, and shows that some talented writers are employed at the white house. the sticking point is, of course, that of all the good and positive things he says, few of them can be traced to the actions actually being made by the administration. as an exposition of ideals, it's fantastic, as a reference to our actually promoting, or even upholding, those ideals, it falls a little flat.

the actual speech is at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/06/politics/06TEXT-BUSH.html

The Age of Liberty

presumably canada has less cR4X0rz?

what do we think about this. we can't even trust our hardware based eVoting systems... are the canadians just less suspicious?

article's light on details. presumably the world standards they refer to are HTTP over SSL, but maybe not.

of course, /. is discussing it here : http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/11/10/1144234&mode=thread&tid=126&tid=95

London Free Press: News Section - 100,000 ballots to be cast online

] In a historic move, Democratic presidential hopeful
] Howard Dean will skip public financing and the spending
] limits that come with it, hoping his money-raising power
] can help win the nomination and unseat President Bush,
] campaign officials said Saturday.

historic indeed. never been done before. hear hear, i say...

CNN.com - Dean skips public funding for White House bid - Nov. 8, 2003

i think this sums up best what i've come to feel on this topic... and makes good points about the general policy of negativism among the various candidates.

here's an interesting comment : "It's hard -- nay, impossible -- to meet Sharpton and not like him. He is personable and, in a way, scary smart. But he does not belong on the platform with the other candidates, because he is not trying to unseat George W. Bush as president but Jesse Jackson as the titular leader of black America. In fact, it was probably the recent endorsement of Dean by Rep. Jesse L. Jackson Jr. that set Sharpton off. Sharpton accused Dean of promoting "an anti-black agenda," a far worse slur than anything Dean said about the Confederate flag."

Daily Kos || The Rocky Debate

] Then, in an interview with the Des Moines Register, Dean
] mentioned the Confederate flag. "I still want to be the
] candidate for guys with Confederate flags in their pickup
] trucks," he told the Register. "We can't beat George Bush
] unless we appeal to a broad cross section of Democrats."
]
] That brought a new series of condemnations yesterday.

can't say i blame the other dems. they may be opportunistic in making this the top story right now, but they're not wrong. first major tick against Dean in my book. I don't care what he *meant*, because he said it in a way that charges the statement with unwelcome elements.

Dean Is Criticized Over Remark on Confederate Flag (washingtonpost.com)

] a personal anecdote meant to demonstrate how difficult it
] is to determine the truth, particularly when
] circumstantial evidence is involved. It involved an
] incident with his daughter, in which, he said, he told
] her not to take any chocolate cookies from the cookie
] jar. When he came home an hour later, he caught her with
] chocolate cookies. Her sister said she saw her taking
] cookies from the jar, and Mr. Muhammad said he sharply
] admonished her. But then her brother, John, explained
] that he had bought the cookies for her and that she had
] been putting extra cookies into the jar when her sister
] caught her.

boy this is gonna be quite a roller coaster i think.

Yahoo! News - Defending Himself, Sniper Suspect Challenges Concept of 'Truth'

] Remote attestation works by generating, in hardware, a
] cryptographic certificate attesting to the identity of
] the software currently running on a PC. (There is no
] determination of whether the software is good or bad,
] or whether it is compromised or not compromised.
] "Identity" is represented by a cryptographic hash,
] which simply allows different programs to be
] distinguished from one another, or changes in their
] code to be discerned, without conveying any sort of value
] judgment.) This certificate may, at the PC user's
] request, be provided to any remote party, and in
] principle has the effect of proving to that party that
] the machine is using expected and unaltered software. If
] the software on the machine has been altered, the
] certificate generated will reflect this. We will see
] that this approach, although elegant, proves
] problematic.

READ THIS!

EFF: Trusted Computing: Promise and Risk

]
] ASHINGTON, Oct. 6 — The Supreme Court on Monday let stand
] a ruling by a federal appeals court allowing Arkansas
] officials to force a convicted murderer to take drugs
] that would make him sane enough to be executed.

Bunch of other SC bits here.

Ruling Allows Forcible Drugging of an Inmate Before Execution