I'm seriously considering voting for Libertarian Presidential Candidate Michael Badnarik mostly because I was impressed with the way he answered these questions. I hadn't really given him much consideration before, but he seems to have a rational approach.

Is this what really happened? How did we get into this mess? Metafilter has more about Iraq and why it ended up the way it did. I don't really know any more then the next person about what happened. But, if you go looking for answers there seems to be the side that says that we screwed up, and the side that says everything is OK. And I don't think that everything is OK.

The deficit is a basically meaningless measure of our government's true indebtedness? I was aware that accounting could hide a lot of things, but this sounds pretty ridiculous.

I don't consider myself to be a political partisan. I think we are probably better off if the President and Congress are from different parties. Especially if there's a lot of partisan bitterness. The less the government gets done the better off we all are. That would sound like a conservative idea. But, the government should also protect the common interests of it's citizens from both external threats and threats from business interests. Which leads to a bigger government. There doesn't seem to be any real answer.

Another Day in Baghdad. | Metafilter Wow. We go and do crap like this and then wonder why they don't like us.

An interesting (to me anyway) analysis of the future economic impact of the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts. The upshot is that the tax cuts were paid for by borrowing money. At some point in the future that money has to be paid back. I recommend reading the introduction and conclusion and skipping the middle (unless you really want more detail.)

The Justice department is getting weirded and weirder. My favorite snippet is "Gilmore's lawyers stated that the government's "extreme cry for secrecy, preventing even plaintiff's counsel from being privy to their legal arguments because plaintiff's counsel does not meet defendants self defined 'covered persons who have a need to know' criteria, is disturbing and illustrates the dangers of secret law."

On Slashdot an interesting review of a book called "The Underground History of American Education." I'm getting a copy from the library, it sounds pretty interesting.

Apparently George W. Bush is upset because trial lawyers keep OB-GYNs from 'practicing their love' on their patients.

The Ghost of Vice President Wallace Warns: "It Can Happen Here" citing one of the very first instances of Godwin's Law? Long before there was an internet, and back when the Nazis were a very real threat.

Still Unreported: The Pay-off in Bush Air Guard Fix I'm surprised that I haven't seen this in the US media at all. And with them being so liberal and all. This story looks pretty well-documented.

This year's Project Censored 2005 - Top 25 Censored Stories

Wow.

This site is the latest meme in a series I have seen about 9/11 conspiracies. There are other sites out there containing much of the same "information." Interesting.

The latest Electoral Vote Predictor has Bush winning 270 to 252. I believe the difference since last time I feature the electoral vote is that he picked up Florida and Pennsylvania.

George W. Bush - "Words speak louder then actions"

About Sunday's United for Peace and Justice rally in New York, FOXNews.com says "Police gave no official crowd estimate of the day's protest. One official put the size at 120,000, although it took nearly five hours for the procession to pass Madison Square Garden. Organizers claimed they had turned out roughly 500,000 protesters"

FOXNews.com puts the total for the Sunday United for Peace and Justice rally at between 120,000 and 500,000.